A FAMILY is looking forward to the new year with new hope their beloved son is free of cancer.

Noah Edgar was diagnosed with a retinoblastoma, a rare malignant tumour of the eye, last January.

He underwent surgery at the Royal London Hospital to have his eye removed followed by chemotherapy at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridgeshire and proton beam therapy in America in a bid to kill any remaining cancerous cells.

Noah's mother, Gemma, said scans had since found no evidence of cancer.

It is the second glint of hope for the family.

Gemma, who is a former paediatric nurse, was also diagnosed with a brain tumour in October 2014.

Surgeons at Queen’s Hospital, Romford, removed as much of the aggressive tumour as they could and she underwent six weeks of radiotherapy.

She has regular MRI scans to check for signs of regrowth but her last one was clear.

Gemma, of Ipswich Road, Colchester, said: "It was a crazy and surreal year.

"At the start, when Noah was diagnosed, I thought it was going to be a never ending nightmare but we got through it.

"Now it is a horrible, distant memory. We spent about 15 weeks of it in hospitals either in Cambridge, Colchester, London or America."

Gemma added: "We can moan about it but we count ourselves as lucky compared to a lot of other parents.

"Noah's treatment was relatively short compared to some other cancers. Theirs can go on for years.

"Although he was ill, he did not let anything stop him."

Noah, who is now two-years-old, was extremely ill after each bout of chemotherapy and it got increasingly worse.

Doctors decided not to give him his sixth and final round of treatment because he had been so poorly.

However, Gemma said: "Since he finished his chemotherapy, he has been absolutely fantastic.

"He has regular follow up appointments at Addenbrookes but the MRI results were good and showed no evidence of the disease.

"He will have to have scans for a couple of years but he is so well in himself.

"He is full of beans. He goes to nursery twice a week and doesn't let anything stop him."

Noah also has to go to Moorfield Hospital in London where his prosthetic eye is changed as he grows.

Gemma said: "He also has to have eye drops four times a day which he doesn't like. He runs away and hides."

The family - including dad, Rob, and brother, Dylan, four - will also have to go back to the University Of Florida Health Proton Therapy Institute in America where Noah underwent proton beam therapy for a check up.

Gemma said: "This time it will be our family holiday and hopefully Noah can enjoy it this time and will be able to go swimming and do all the things a little boy would want to do."