Five-year-old girl helps others while battling cancer

Alice Morley has battled more than most in her short five years and now she's helping other kids through their cancer journeys.

Alice was diagnosed with orbital rhabdomyosarcoma last year, after her parents Sian and James noticed changes in her eye.

Doctors in their home town of Gladstone didn't pick anything up during testing, forcing the family to travel to Brisbane to see a specialist who immediately sent Alice to the hospital, where the cancer was confirmed.

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"I did not know what that was. In my head it wasn't even cancer at that point, no one had used the 'C' word," Alice's mother Sian said.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a soft tissue cancer which can grow anywhere in the body.

In Alice's case, it was a tumour behind her eye.

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Alice immediately started treatment.

She endured six months of chemotherapy and 28 rounds of radiation.

It was incredibly tough on her little body, but Alice still managed to do it all with her trademark smile.

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By December last year, Alice was given the all-clear.

Her family spent Christmas out of the hospital, dreaming of the year ahead.

But by May, Alice's eye had started to change again.

Her parents rushed her back to her doctors, who confirmed the worst news - again.

Alice had relapsed.

This time the tumour was threatening her life again and the only option was to remove her eye and eyelid.

"If we want our daughter to be cancer free - not living on chemo - then yep, they have to take her eye and we have to make sure this cancer is gone and doesn't come back," Sian said.

Dad James said: "That was I think the worst moment of the whole process, because it's the first time it's been so concrete that it's a lifelong impact."

But as always Alice has tackled this latest challenge with a smile.

It's now that smile which will be immortalised in print to help other kids with the same type of cancer, thanks to I Draw Childhood Cancer.

Angus Olsen is the man with the mighty pen, who started drawing books to help children understand their cancer journeys after his own daughter's battle.

His daughter Jane had the same type of cancer as Alice, but in her abdomen.

As Angus sat by her beside in hospital, the former Disney animator started to draw what they were going through.

"It was on instinct really, just to show family and friends and then I gradually started meeting more parents of soft tissue cancer kids," Angus said.

Now he's created 20 books, in 20 languages, which have travelled to 104 countries.

Today he's meeting Alice and her parents to tell her she's the latest star of his work.

"I thought, 'I know a lot of kids who have orbital rhabdomyosarcoma' and I thought it would be really good to do a book just for them, and I thought it'd be great if I could put you in there," Angus said to Alice when meeting her.

He showed Alice her cartoon self, adding the little hair she's grown, while also helping to illustrate her battle and triumph, which will go on to help other kids.

"I love doing things for forgotten spaces in the oncology world," Angus said.

Alice still has months of treatment ahead of her, but knows when she's all done, she'll get to ring the special bell.