PARENTS of a youngster with a rare form of cancer have been left with “shattered hearts” after breaking the news that their daughter has “relapsed again”.

Flora Gentleman was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma when she was just two years old.

Since then, the youngster has undergone treatment, including multiple rounds of chemotherapy, a seven-hour operation, a stem cell transplant and radiotherapy.

Treatment has taken place in both the UK and USA.

Now, a heartbreaking social media post has given an update on Flora’s condition.

The post on Friday reads: “The recurrent fevers and aches and pains she’s been experiencing for the last month were unfortunately symptoms of the neuroblastoma.

“We had desperately hoped she was fighting some kind of virus, that there was some simple explanation for her decline, keeping hopeful that it wasn’t the disease returning.

“But devastatingly, we discovered the disease is back - her bone marrow is packed with neuroblastoma cells and her MRI shows boney lesions throughout her body.

“She will have a neuroblastoma-specific scan next week to show in detail what areas are active cancer, but we had to start treatment before then to get the disease under control.

“She has started a new regime of three chemotherapies and an antibody, which we hope will act quickly.”

Five-year-old Flora was diagnosed with neuroblastoma after a large tumour was found next to one of her kidneys and cancer in her skull, behind her eyes and in her bone marrow.

The community has rallied round Flora and her mum Stephanie and dad Jamie by raising thousands of pounds.

Fundraisers have included a sponsored cycle, a nursery graduation and a bake sale for the family, who moved to Haddington having previously lived in Aberlady.

READ MORE: Nursery rally round to help Flora Gentleman in cancer battle

The social media post urges people to keep helping if they can.

It reads: “As you can imagine, we’re incredibly heartbroken.

“Flora was supposed to be finishing her final cycle of relapse treatment, with plans to ring the bell and fly out to New York in just a couple of weeks’ time to start maintenance treatment.

“All of this has been painfully ripped away.

“Our team here in Edinburgh have planned three cycles of treatment before we scan and assess how well she has responded.

“Once Flora has had her scan next week, we hope to seek second and third opinions to make sure we’re giving Flora the best chance of regaining remission again.

“Although we will not be able to enrol on the vaccine trial in New York at this moment in time, we are continuing with our fundraising campaign.

“The options for treating relapsed neuroblastoma are slim here in the UK, we are well aware of this.

“There are, however, clinical trials and treatments available in Europe and throughout the US which we are following closely.

“If Flora were to stop responding to treatment here in the UK or we run out of options to treat, we desperately want to have the funds available to travel for treatment.

“So please continue sharing her page, donating and fundraising.”

To support the family, go to solvingkidscancer.org.uk/children/flora