Meet Chemo Duck, the special toy that helps children fighting cancer
A TOY duck is helping young children fighting cancer to cope with their treatment.
Sick children have been given a ‘Chemo Duck’ – a toy with its own treatment tubes – which was brought into Ireland by children’s cancer charity Aoibheann’s Pink Tie.
Just like the children, Chemo Duck has a Hickman line in his chest, which, in cancer patients, allows repeated delivery of IV drugs.
Susan Brown, mother of twoyear-old Ceejay – one of the first children in Ireland to receive the special toy from the charity – said the yellow and blue Chemo Duck had made a huge difference to her son, who is being treated for leukaemia.
She said it relaxes Ceejay because, in his eyes, Chemo Duck is also going through chemotherapy.
His father, Marcus, said: ‘It allows him to verbalise and act out his own fears.’
This is understood to be the first time Chemo Duck has been available in Ireland and it is given to children free of charge by the charity.
Mrs Brown said Ceejay was diagnosed last September, after having high tempera- tures that doctors originally thought were due to a virus.
After being sent to Cavan General Hospital for blood tests he was diagnosed with leukaemia and was transferred to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, which is the centre of excellence for children’s cancer in Ireland.
Before he got the Hickman line, bloods would be taken from Ceejay’s foot, leaving him traumatised.
‘He was screaming crying. He wouldn’t take his slippers off at night and would even wear them in bed,’ she said.
‘Then we got Chemo Duck. The staff would treat Chemo Duck first and then put him sitting on Ceejay’s knee. He would look after Chemo Duck while he was being treated.
‘He was like a different child,’ she added.
Chemo Duck is part of the Gabe’s Chemo Duck programme, which began in the US in 2002, and is named after Gabe, now 14, whose mother altered a cuddly toy to comfort her son while he was undergoing treatment for a tumour.
‘Ceejay was like a different child’