A BRAVE teenager who touched the hearts of Bolton Evening News readers is facing another battle for life.

Amanda Gifford, aged 16, has been told by doctors that a routine scan has revealed a tumour on her lung.

It is just one more setback for the determined schoolgirl who has battled cancer for two and a half years.

And -- despite now weighing three and a half stones -- she is determined to visit her grandfather in Ireland.

Amanda was first diagnosed with cancer after she returned home from school one day complaining of a sore leg.

The teenager faced a tough year undergoing chemotherapy as well as having her leg amputated.

Amanda was only given a 20 per cent chance of survival, but after being given a false leg stunned doctors by her determination to return to her pals at Rumworth School.

She enjoyed eight months of good health until last August when a routine scan revealed a pea-sized tumour on her lung.

Amanda, from Halliwell, underwent life-threatening surgery to remove the tumour at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and made a good recovery.

But she and her family were devastated 10 weeks ago after being told a tumour the size of a melon had appeared on her lungs.

Yet Amanda, who loves singing karaoke, has amazed her doctors and nurses at the Pendlebury hospital once again and has remained cheerful despite undergoing the most intensive chemotherapy possible which has resulted in the loss of her hair.

Her parents, Michael and Bernadette, who have four other children and a grandson, feared they would lose Amanda last weekend when she slipped into a semi-coma.

Michael, who stays with his daughter when she is in hospital, said: "She just keeps springing back and we don't know where she gets the strength from."

Bernadette, who is from a large family in Dublin, said: "Amanda is a brilliant girl who has never given up, but she's getting tired and frail now.

"We have never hidden anything from her. She is determined not to die in hospital or a hospice and wants to come home."

Amanda, of Barnwood Close, remains determined to make one last journey to Ireland to see her relatives, but she is too weak to leave the house at the moment.

The plucky teenager is looking forward to her 17th birthday next month, but knows she faces an uphill battle for life and has planned her own funeral. If she loses her fight, Amanda has told her parents she wants to be buried with her grandmother in Dublin, in her favourite pink outfit.

She has asked her parents to play her two favourite songs, "Tomorrow Never Comes" by American singer Garth Brookes and "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion at her funeral.