TEENAGER Laurie Hillman and her family will never forget St David's Day last year - but for all the wrong reasons.

While Wales celebrated its saint's day, the Blackwood 16-year-old was being diagnosed with leukaemia and whisked off to the new Children's Hospital for Wales to begin a gruelling year of chemotherapy.

Twelve months on, the final block of chemotherapy is almost over and, as she begins another stage of treatment, Laurie is busy studying for GCSEs.

"It was totally out of the blue, but she's been in the very best hands," said mum Alison Hillman.

"She'd been getting infections and hadn't really been well since Christmas (2004). It was a lot of little things that weren't clearing up. "She went skiing with the school and got another infection when she came back.

"The doctor sent her for tests and we found out she had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia."

Around 300 children a year in the United Kingdom are diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

One of four main types of leukaemia, which is a cancer of the white blood cells which help fight infection, its cause is unknown

Next week Laurie goes on to a regime of maintenance treatment, less intense but still involving daily tablets and monthly injections of chemotherapy.

"She's been in and out of the children's hospital. She was one of the first new patients to come in," said Mrs Hillman.

"We've got to know the staff and some patients, and she still keeps in touch with some of them.

"It's good, as well, to be able to give a bit of advice and support to newcomers."

Laurie, who lives with her mum, dad Paul, brother Lee, 18, and sister Lucy, 13, at Woodfieldside, Blackwood, has managed to keep going to her school, Pontllanfraith Comprehensive, whenever she has been well enough.

"They've been sending me work home and I have a home tutor, so I've been able to keep studying," said Laurie, who will take GCSEs in the summer.

She aims to do A-levels, and has an ambition to be a physiotherapist. Laurie is one of more than 4,000 young patients to have been through the doors of the Children's Hospital for Wales, Cardiff, in its first year.