A BRAVE toddler who is battling a brain tumour has returned home from America after a gruelling ten-week course of radiotherapy.

Jessica Rose Duggan, from Beaconsfield, had to go under general anaesthetic 45 times for the specialist Proton therapy to be completed - and her dad said “it's a minor miracle that she's bounced back”.

The one-year-old's benign brain tumour, called a Craniopharyngioma, is extremely rare for children so young and cannot be treated in Britain.

Parents Ben Duggan and Sam Ward spent two-and-a-half months helping Jessica through the treatment in Jacksonville, Florida.

Ben, 32, said: “You don't get away scot-free when you have radiotherapy beamed into your head and the guys in America say it will take a long time for her settle down.

“But she's okay and this is the beginning of the road to recovery. It went very much as well as we expected and it's a minor miracle how she's bounced back.”

The doctors said Jessica responded well, but she now faces a wait of up to a year to see if the targeted cells were killed off.

The family, who live in Post Office Lane, thanked everyone who helped raise more than £30,000 to help fund the life-saving trip.

Ben, a journalist, added: “The money has allowed us all to get through this together. It allowed us as a family to go out there and do it.”

There is still plenty of funding left to help pay for rehabilitation and future treatments, he said.

See www.jessicarosefoundation.org.uk for more information.