Cancer girl’s teddy bear plea

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Little cancer patient Ellie Dickenson -who has bravely endured gruelling treatment for her disease since just after her first birthday - has relied on her favourite teddy bear to get her through the ordeal.

But now the two-year-old has been left devastated after "Bear" was lost on a shopping trip in York.

Ellie's mum today launched a desperate plea for the return of the distinctive Pooh Bear toy, which is dressed in sheep's clothing.

Mum Joanne said Ellie was never parted from the bear, and it even went with her to the operating theatre where she undergoes lumbar punctures every three months. Staff at St James's Hospital in Leeds are so used to seeing the much-loved bear that they even gave it its own hospital name tag.

Joanne said: "That bear goes with everywhere. She has to be holding it. It's her comfort. She's not really interacting with other kids because she's been in a hospital bed and she couldn't play. She'd watch DVDs and hold that bear. He's very well loved."

Ellie, of Bell Farm, York, has had to have intensive chemotherapy ever since being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

When she caught flu last year, mum Joanne thought she could lose her daughter - but Ellie has pulled through and is now on chemotherapy at home every day.

The bear's name tag is still round its ankle, although it has been cuddled so much that the lettering has worn away. It also wears pink slippers, and part of its nose has been bitten away.

Joanne said the toy had been lost while she and her daughter were in York on Monday. They got off the bus together at the Theatre Royal, in St Leonard's Place, at about 11.30am, visiting the post office, in Lendal, and Thomas The Baker, in Market Street, which they reached at about 1pm.

It was then that Ellie and her mum noticed the bear was no longer with them.

Joanne retraced their steps, but her search for the toy was in vain. Now she has launched a plea for anyone who might know where it is.

"Most people would have just passed it," she said. "I'm hoping that some child has picked it up and thought it was cute."

Anyone with any information about the whereabouts of Ellie's bear should phone Joanne on 07854 866950.

《The Press》