BRAVE CANCER GIRL DIES ON BIRTHDAY

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Mar 18, 2007 | by PAMELA OWEN

A BRAVE young cancer victim who named her deadly tumour Harry lost her fight for life - on her ninth birthday.

Schoolgirl Siobhan Shearer, who fought the disease for nearly two years, went to sleep and never woke up as she celebrated her special day at her home in Aberdeen.

She had been a healthy and happy child until November 2005 when she banged her left leg on a desk.

Her wound flared into a tennis-ball-sized lump overnight. Her worried mum took her to the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital where doctors said it was a blood clot and would vanish in a few months.

But the nasty bump wouldn't go away and Siobhan couldn't help but bang it a few more times.

Siobhan's mum Leeanne took her back to the doctors for the fourth time but this time she was told the outlook was more serious: Siobhan had a tumour.

She was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a type of cancer which starts in the pelvis or thigh and is most common in children between 10 and 20. She had several traumatic operations as the disease spread through her body.

But in January doctors told her parents the heartbreaking news that an operation to remove a tumour in her lungs had been unsuccessful. She underwent yet more chemotherapy but scans showed the tumours had spread to her brain.

Her shocked parents and her eight-year-old brother Morgan were then told that Siobhan had only a couple of weeks to live. Sadly, she died just two days later.

Last Thursday - the day of her ninth birthday - Siobhan had just whispered to her dad Alex that she was tired and she wanted to go to sleep. She closed her eyes and never woke up.

Her devastated mother, Leeanne, 30, said yesterday: "We were there with her until the end. We didn't leave her side.

"She told her dad that she wanted a dog and then said she was tired and wanted to sleep.

"She never said another word after that. I was happy that she didn't suffer or know what was happening to her."

Alex, 39, said: "She was brilliant and fought to the very end. We couldn't have asked for any more from her."

Siobhan's funeral will be held at the Causewayend Funeral Home on Wednesday at 1pm and will be followed by a service at Hazlehead Cemetery in Aberdeen.

'She said she'd like a dog, then went to sleep'