The parents of six-year-old Ellie Davidson, who is suffering with leukaemia, are urging people to help find them find her a lifesaving bone marrow donor.

Ellie, of Collingbourne Ducis, was diagnosed with leukaemia for the second time in September and last month doctors told her family that she will need a bone marrow transplant.

Her mum Hannah Mortimer, dad Richard Davidson and three-year-old brother Oscar have all signed up to the bone marrow register but none are a match.

Now Ellie’s parents hope as many people as possible will join in the hope of finding a suitable donor.

Miss Mortimer, 28, said: “We are desperate to find a bone marrow donor. All people need to do is register with and they will send a home swab kit out, it’s really quick and simple and could save Ellie’s life.

“It would mean everything to us if we found a donor. Ellie is my whole life, she’s my world.

“The doctors are quite vague about when we need to find a donor but we have a few months, they’ve told us nothing will happen this side of Christmas.”

Ellie, a pupil at Collingbourne Ducis Primary School, was first diagnosed with leukaemia in May 2010 and, after years of chemotherapy, she was given the all clear in July 2012.

But 14 months later, after a routine blood test, Ellie’s family were told that  the cancer had returned.

Miss Mortimer said: “It was absolutely devastating when we found out it had come back.

“Ellie was at school that day and I remember taking her to gymnastics and when we got back there was a message from the doctors on the answer machine asking for me to call them and I just knew that it had come back.

“To see Ellie have to go through this again is awful because she’s not just my daughter, she’s my best friend.”

Since then she has been receiving treatment at Southampton Hospital but intensive chemotherapy has left her with ulcers in her eyes and throughout her digestive track making it painful for to eat and use the toilet.

Miss Mortimer said: “She has four days on and two days off. She has chemotherapy at nine in the morning and then nine at night for three hours.
“At the moment she’s undergoing strong chemotherapy which will stop next week and then she will have maintenance chemotherapy until we find a donor. 

“Despite everything she still smiles and is still brave. It breaks my heart to put her through all this but she is the one who makes me smile and keeps me strong.

“Apart from the obvious hair loss you wouldn’t be able to tell she was ill, she’s just amazing. When she lost her hair I shaved mine off too and we joke about it, call ourselves egg heads and stick stickers on the backs of her head, but she’s asked me to grow mine back now.”

If Ellie finds a donor she will undergo a transplant in hospital in Bristol, where she will stay in isolation for three months.

A Facebook page, Ellie vs. Leukaemia, has been set up to help find a donor and has already gained a following of more than 2,000 people.

Miss Mortimer said: “I’d like to say a big thank you to all my friends and family who have been so supportive and to everyone who has already registered.

“Even if just half the people who joined the Facebook group signed up to be a donor it would mean there are 1,000 new donors and even if they are not a match for Ellie they could be for someone else and it’s nice to know we are helping other families that are going through the same thing we are.”

To register as a donor visit anthonynolan.org or deletebloodcancer.org.uk