A TEENAGER who had to have her right arm amputated in a cancer fight has won over the judges of an art competition after quickly learning to draw with her opposite hand.

Skye Duncan, 14, from Gartloch, Glasgow, was diagnosed with bone cancer last summer, after doctors initially put her sore arm down to muscular pain and referred her for physiotherapy.

But after falling from a boat on holiday, she could not move her arm and was taken to hospital as soon as she arrived home.

Within days, her family were given the terrible news she had Osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer. Chemotherapy failed to halt the disease and surgeons were forced to amputate at the shoulder.

After the seven-and-a-half hour operation at Glasgow’s Royal Hospital For Children last September, she improved rapidly and has been declared cancer-free following 10 months of chemotherapy which ended in May.

Read more: 'Thank you Glasgow': Lecturer credits city for helping her beat cancer 

She continued to attend school throughout her treatment when she was able, supported by her loving family including twin sister Sara.

Glasgow Times:

Now her first ever left-handed picture has won a hospital poster competition run by Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity. The teenager has also nailed writing, puting together a school essay describing her traumatic experience.

Skye, who is a pupil at Eastbank Academy, said: “I think it was the first time I really tried drawing with my left hand and it turned out better than I thought because I felt it would have taken a while to get that back.”

Glasgow Times:

"Writing only took me weeks, I just kind of went for it and I was impressed with how I did.

"It was three weeks after my surgery that I first wrote, I wrote an essay. I rewrote it until I was happy with my writing - about three times. "I'd just been declared cancer free. My English teacher's been dead good."

Recalling her daughter’s ordeal, her mother Anne, 48, said that from their first visit to A&E everything happened very quickly.

Read more: Cancer patient's tumours 'completely eradicated' after game-changing treatment 

During tests doctors were able to “put a needle right into the bone, it was so soft”.

She said: “She was deteriorating rapidly, so it was a case of the arm had to come off. She was bedridden at this point, could hardly walk, could barely talk to any of us.

“The minute the arm left it was an instant improvement. She got out of bed three or four hours after surgery. It was just amazing – it was as if it was just poisoning the life out of her and it had to go.”

Glasgow Times:

Skye’s last session of chemotherapy was on her 14th birthday on May 17 and the teenager celebrated with a pyjama party in hospital.

Her mother said: "She just finds a way of just getting back to her old life as best she can. There’s no stopping her.

"It was probably just the first picture she drew with her left so to win I just thought was amazing.

"It's just another wee thing you're ticking off - every day you're ticking, she can still do that, she can still do this."

Glasgow Times:

Surgeon Rod Duncan said: “Like many children, Skye has been incredible in  the face of a life-changing diagnosis.”