Carrboro girl suffering from leukemia reunited with lucky doll
CARRBORO, N.C. (WTVD) -- A 7-year-old Carrboro girl with leukemia has a lucky doll that she believes eats her cancer.
She lost the doll over the weekend. So her mother and UNC Children's hospital took to Facebook to try to help find it.
Little Jolie Helmick loves math and science and rock n' roll, but, last month, doctors diagnosed her with leukemia.
As you can imagine, she's on heavy treatments. A family friend gave her a little doll in the hospital for luck.
"We hung him on her IV pole and he became her leukemia eater. He was her cancer eater," said mother Melanie Helmick. "He was going to get rid of all of her cancer that was in her bones."
He goes to every treatment and every doctor's appointment.
"He's tiny and he's cool," said Jolie.
Jolie just finished a treatment they hoped would wipe the cancer out of her body and put her in remission. However, last week, they found out it didn't work.
"Her treatment now is going to be more aggressive," said Melanie. "The side effects are going to be more serious."
The doll was with them but sometime Friday between dinner and a pharmacy Jolie realized he was missing.
"I panicked," said Melanie. "After having just gotten some really bad news, it was almost more than I could take that he was now missing."
So she posted it on Facebook. UNC Children's Hospital posted it on Facebook. It was shared 1,400 times.
Monday night, the doll was found.
A woman who saw the post on Facebook actually went to all the spots Melanie and Jolie had been on Friday.
A man at the CVS in Carrboro hadn't seen all the talk on Facebook about the doll, but he helped the woman find it.
