BRAVE five-year-old Dylan Munro is looking forward to "the best Christmas ever" after winning a trip to Lapland for being a model patient while enduring months of painful hospital treatment.

His relieved mum, Carrie Munro, said: "This is going to be an amazing Christmas. I am going to spoil Dylan and his brother rotten and the visit to Lapland has really given us something happy to remember after all the heartache."

Dylan came out of Birming-ham Children's Hospital only on Monday last week and is now on the road to recovery.

But this had meant him undergoing four months of gruelling chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma - a form of cancer which had attacked Dylan's bowel as well as causing him terrible pain leading up to diagnosis.

During his lengthy spell in hospital, the plucky youngster, who lives with his mother and brother, Curtis, in Jubilee Drive, Kidderminster, was so well behaved that the children's cancer social work team put his name forward for one of the trips to Lapland offered by the When You Wish Upon a Star charity.

Miss Munro, who is 29, said the nurses "had been amazed" by Dylan throughout his treatment, which began at the end of August, after an operation had confirmed the cancer.

Miss Munro said: "He was so, so polite - even when he was in agony. Even when the nurses came to take blood - which terrified him - he would say 'please' and 'thank you' ".

This was in spite of Dylan's chemotherapy regime being more intensive than for many of the other children, said Miss Munro.

She explained Dylan was having the drugs - often associated with unpleasant side-effects - injected daily directly into his spine for a full week, rather than the more usual day or two at a time, followed by another day-or-so respite before resuming.

"The side-effects of the second and third blocks were the worst," said Miss Munro.

Dylan had suffered extremely severe mouth ulcers - so painful, he had to have large doses of morphine.

"He could not talk properly and could not even swallow his own saliva. It was really harrowing.

"As a mum you want to protect your child but I knew the therapy was the only thing which would make him well so, obviously, I had to let it carry on. "

But now Miss Munro is breathing a huge sigh of relief as the stoical boy is home - he even attended his Christmas party at Birchen Coppice First School last Wednesday.

The only sign of his recent traumatic experience has been the loss of his, usually blond, hair.

Miss Munro said: "When the doctor said cancer my heart sank. But now they have said they are quite happy to say he will make a full recovery. The disease is less serious in children."

The trip to Lapland had been "wonderful" she said. She had travelled to the country with Dylan and his brother on a plane from East Midlands Airport last Thursday.

"The boys saw Santa and Rudolph - a real reindeer. Dylan loved it to bits and his face was an absolute picture when he saw Father Christmas. They both really believe in him now," she said.