A PAIR of Beith siblings who between them have battled blindness, cancer and meningitis have returned home from the trip of a lifetime.

Amy McKenzie, 15, and her brother Scott, 10, flew out to Florida last week on the British Airway’s Dreamflight after being chosen to go on the trip.

The youngsters’ mum Gillian McKenzie said they have had an amazing time and got to meet their favourite superheroes and paid visits to Discovery Cove, Hollywood Studios, Universal Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, Seaworld, NASA and Harry Potter Lands.

Gillian said: “They have had the best time ever. I just couldn’t wait to see them when they got back, it was a long 10 days. Their mentors, Pamela and Grant have looked after our children like there own. they have been amazing.

“Pamela messaged me saying that they had arrived safely at Heathrow, but I knew because I was tracking the flight. She said Amy was a tired, happy and emotional girl.”

Amy was born in September 2004 at 24 weeks, weighing just 1lb 11oz.

When she was just four-and-a-half-months old doctors told her devastated parents she was permanently blind in both eyes.

Just five years later Gillian and husband Scott, 42, were delighted to discover they were expecting their fourth child. However, Gillian was shocked to learn that following a routine smear test just weeks before she discovered she was pregnant, she would need to get treatment for precancerous cells.

Doctors warned the couple the treatment Gillian needed would cause complications in her pregnancy and Gillian’s waters broke when she was 26 weeks pregnant, but she managed to hold on until week 30, when she went in to labour with Scott. He was born in October 2009, 10 weeks early, weighing just 3lbs 2oz.

But the tiny tot’s battle for survival was just beginning when, at just six weeks-old he contracted meningitus. After surviving the potentially-fatal infection the family were struck with another devastating blow when they discovered that Scott, then aged two, had stage four neuroblastoma.

Gillian said: “We couldn’t believe it. He survived meningitis then was diagnosed with cancer. It was cruel. They said not good, it was unlikely he would survive, but there was a small chance. We just said ‘So there is a chance, well that gives us hope’, and we clung to that. We just took each day as it came and tried to get through it for Scott.”

Scott is now 10-years-old and in remission after years of gruelling chemotherapy and operations, however the treatments have left the schoolboy with permanent brain damage.