Humphrey B. Bear is Leukaemia Foundation’s new ‘ambassa-bear’
This Aussie childhood icon is raising awareness and joy for young children diagnosed with blood cancer. For little Indigo it means the world.
Gold Coast
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Humphrey B. Bear is the Leukaemia Foundation’s newest “ambassa-bear” raising awareness and bringing joy to some of the Gold Coast’s youngest blood cancer patients.
The childhood celebrity collaboration comes as the foundation marks 25 years of the World’s Greatest Shave campaign which has since raised more than $57.8 million for blood cancer research since 2000.
At two years old, Indigo has frequented Gold Coast University Hospital more times than the average adult after being diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma as a baby.
It means she has endured the endless hunger symptomatic of steroid medication and the associated hair loss and crippling aches and pains of chemotherapy all before starting kindergarten.
But on Thursday, little Indigo was all smiles and laughter while painting Humphrey B. Bear blue.
“It’s a crazy experience to see your child rub shoulders with death so many different times,” her mother Ella McLellan, 27, told the Bulletin.
“But hopefully she’ll be finished with the treatment this November. We’re hoping to say goodbye to chemo forever, then Indie can start kindergarten like other normal kids.”
In Australia, 53 people are diagnosed with a blood cancer every 27 minutes. And according to the foundation, one in three diagnosed Australians, or around 6,600 people annually, die as a result of blood cancer within five years of diagnosis – making it the second highest cause of cancer-related deaths.
“But we know holistically that the financial burden of cancer treatment is one of the most detrimental impacts outside of the physical impacts of cancer,” Kathryn Huntley, general manager of health services at the Leukaemia Foundation added.
Not only does the foundation raise critical funds for blood cancer research, it also helps families and patients to pay household bills and find accommodation to access treatment.
“We don’t want people to make the choice between having treatment or paying the bills – or force a mother to make a decision between being there for her child or going to work,” Ms Huntley said.
For Ms McLelland, the financial aid is the best way anyone can help people diagnosed with blood cancer.
“The past two years have been gruelling, the bills don’t stop, nothing stops – but to know they care so much and are willing to do all of this for us it restores your faith in humanity.
“A lot of people ask us how they can help oncology families and the biggest way is donating to charities like the Leukaemia Foundation because they help us while we’re going through the most traumatic experience of our life.”
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