A LIVING nightmare is at last over for this plucky teenager who is on cloud nine after learning she has won her 30-month battle against cancer.

Rosie Topps has been fighting acute lymphoblastic leukaemia since the age of 14 – but after two-and-a-half terrible years she is now free to get on with her life after being told her cancer has gone into remission.

Rosie, 16, who lives at Easingwold, is celebrating the news by helping her friend, Chloe Rhodes, organise a fashion show in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“I feel great,” Rosie said. “When the hospital phoned to tell me I was in remission, I was so happy I was dancing around the kitchen.

“It just means so much. It gives me an opportunity to have a completely new start. I’ve been in this world of cancer for so long and haven’t been able to do things because I’ve been feeling ill, but now I can get back to being my old self.

“For the first time in ages, I’ve been doing something nearly every day with my friends and it feels so good.

“The other day it was pouring with rain, but I put a tent up in the garden with my friends and had a picnic, just because we could.”

Rosie, who will enter the sixth form of Easingwold School in September, suffered from an horrendous catalogue of side effects from her chemotherapy treatment. She spent an entire year in a wheelchair because she lost sensation in her legs and has also been left with steroid-induced diabetes, bladder problems, clawed fingers and toes, and a bone disease called avascular necrosis.

In the coming year, she must undergo bladder reconstruction surgery and an operation to correct her fingers and toes – but Rosie said she did not mind.

“I’ve got all these side-effects and I still need operations, but at least I’m still here and the cancer has gone,” she said.

Rosie, and her friend, Chloe, are now organising a charity fashion show, with a raffle and auction, at the Park Inn Hotel, in York, on September 16.

Tickets go on sale on August 16 and are available from Chloe at rhodes3108@hotmail.co.uk

The cost is £20 for a standard ticket and £25 for a VIP ticket, which includes a goody bag and entry to the after-party.