THE family of a teenager diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer say they are so proud of their “fighter”.

Corey Spence, 14, may appear like any other young person but she has been living with rhabdomyoscarcoma, a type of muscle cancer, since doctors discovered the devastating illness last July.
Corey, from Riddrie, has recently returned from America where she received proton beam therapy, which is not yet available in the UK, to treat the cancer.
It is the same treatment five-year-old Ashya King from Hampshire received in Prague, after which he is now cancer-free.
Now Corey’s older cousin Nicole Nugent, 25, plans to abseil down Yorkhill Hospital on Sunday to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT), which has supported Corey.
Nicole is business development manager at Glasgow  restaurant Grill on the Corner, which raised nearly £600 for the TCT over the festive season.
Corey’s grandma Mary, 56, said: “I’ve really been inspired by Corey’s journey, the whole family has.
“She’s fought it, she’s a fighter.
“There’s times when she’s been really down but she’s picked herself up. It’s been a long hard struggle, it really has.
“It’s broke our hearts, but she’s got herself through it with the help of the love and support from her family.”
Corey, who lives with her grandma, went to the doctor when she found a lump on the side of her head.
Mary said they both had to “carry each other out” when they found out it was an aggressive form of the cancer.
Corey said: “I went to the doctor and they couldn’t remove it.
“That’s when I found out it was cancer. It had spread to my lymph nodes.”
Mary added: “You don’t expect your 13-year-old granddaughter to have cancer.”
She was given gruelling treatment at Yorkhill immediately.
Corey also went through a 14-hour operation to remove the tumour. It involved taking skin from her back to cover the area on her head where the tumour was.
Corey will undergo more work in the future.
Then the teen left to go to Oklahoma for two months on New Year’s Day to receive proton therapy.
Mary said: “Ordinary radiotherapy would have threatened Corey’s cells in years to come but the proton just targets the cancer.
“We met a lot of different people in America, they were all going through the same thing.”
Corey, who loves playing video games and was due to go into the third year of secondary school when the diagnosis was given, is hoping the cancer has gone.
She has lost two stone and is trying to build her strength up. After Corey lost her hair through the treatment, TCT organised for her to be fitted with a wig.
Corey said: “They haven’t given me the all clear  yet. I’ll be getting an MRI scan soon.
“I’ve finished all  my treatment. I’m honestly just relieved to think I don’t need to do any more chemo. I just want to focus on getting better now.”
She is planning to go back to school at St Andrew’s Secondary in Carntyne after the Easter holidays.
When Corey found out she had cancer, she struggled to come to terms with it.
“It was so unexpected,” she said.
“You think of people having cancer but when it hits you it takes two or three months to actually accept it.
“I’d still wake up sometimes and I’d forget I had cancer. Then it would hit me. It  made me realise how much I guarded my life.
“When I got this I just thought: I don’t want to die. Life can just be taken away from you.”
Nicole will abseil down Yorkhill this Sunday. The event is being held to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
TCT is planning to move from Yorkhill, along with other children’s services, to the new South Glasgow super hospital later this year.