Every day Antonia Xuereb opens the drawers where her granddaughter Leah keeps her clothes and toys and sends her blessings to the three-year-old who is recovering from major surgery in the US.

She has suffered so much as a mother but she is always smiling

“I cannot wait until my little angel returns home. I used to pray that the treatment would go well, and now I pray to see her soon,” the 65-year-old said.

On Monday Leah underwent a 12-hour operation in Texas to remove a very rare form of stomach cancer after an excruciating 16 months of diagnosis and treatment at Great Ormond Hospital in London.

Yesterday she was watching cartoons and talking away to her parents, Zhana and Jonathan Xuereb who, exhausted but immensely relieved, have remained at her bedside.

The operation went better than they expected and Leah is showing “good signs of recovery”.

“I just know she’s going to be OK,” her mother said. “On Tuesday she was helped down from the bed onto a chair, and considering what she’s been through that was a really huge step.”

She added that on Sunday they were “very fearful” about how things might turn out. She could not even think up a simple prayer. But her friends and family sent her comforting personalised prayers which she could just read out and that helped her “keep strong”.

The parents’ relief was shared by their family in Għajnsielem, who did not sleep a wink during the operation to remove the girl’s yolk-sac tumour, which was over at 5.30am local time on Tuesday. “I could not sleep at all, and we kept phoning Zhana and Jonathan. They were emotional but I told them they had run 99 steps, now the final one will be the toughest,” Antonia Xuereb told The Times.

She was lost for words and could not describe the relief she felt when she was told that the operation had gone well. The previous months, she said, had been full of suffering.

Throughout the ordeal, the grandmother prayed to all the saints she knew of and even wrote a poem to the Virgin Mary for Leah.

She had visited the little girl last November at Great Ormond but could not bring herself to go back after all the suffering she witnessed at the hospital.

Leah’s brother Owen and aunt Josefa visited the toddler some time later. Every morning and every night throughout their short visit, the 14-year-old boy would write a small prayer for his sister in the visitor’s book at the hospital’s chapel.

Since the visit, Josefa Xuereb has started appreciating life more. “It’s been a difficult time, but now I feel as if there was something heavy on my chest that has been lifted,” she said, adding she had found comfort in her mother.

“I would say to myself ‘our cross is so heavy’, but my mother would tell me that we would not have been laden with a heavier burden than we could carry.

“Zhana is another strong pillar. She has suffered so much as a mother but she is always smiling,” she said, adding she could not wait until the family in Għajnsielem made a Skype call to Leah at the Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas.

Leah is currently hooked up to a machine – due to the operation, her stomach is temporarily out of function.

She will have to spend the next few days in intensive care and when she leaves hospital depends on her rate of recovery.

Leah was healthy until she turned two and despite the high doses of chemotherapy and stem cell transplant, her disease progressed very fast. The €245,000 operation has been funded by the Maltese Government.