Heather Mills was left terrified by a cancer scare before Christmas.

The 44-year-old former model - who lost her left leg below the knee in when she was hit by a police motorcycle in 1993 - revealed doctors found a tumour in the limb late last year which thankfully turned out to be benign.

She explained: "An MRI scan picked up a tumour in the top of my left leg, which is the same one I had amputated below the knee 19 years ago. I had to go back into the MRI machine and they put a dye into it. Doctors said it had been there for some time. It all happened very quickly. Thankfully it was all fine. Doctors told me the tumour was benign, not cancerous."

Heather has hopes of competing in the 2014 Paralympics skiing competition but admitted she is happiest when enjoying a more leisurely approach to her "miracle child", eight-year-old daughter Beatrice, from her marriage to Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney.

She added in an interview with HELLO! magazine: "I only train when my daughter is with her father and when she's on holiday. When she is on holiday, she comes skiing with me. Beatrice is a brilliant skier. Every year we are on the snow, she is racing past me. She is a miracle child anyway as I was not meant to have kids so seeing her on the slope next to me is like fairyland."