England star John Stones has dedicated last night’s Three Lions victory to five-year-old Dillan Ramsey-Aksehir who has passed away after a battle with leukemia.
Dillan, who was diagnosed at the age of one, sadly died during England’s Round of 16 match against Slovakia last night.
Sharing the news with social media, his mother Amy Ramsey said: ‘Dillan passed away today at 6.15pm.
‘He wasn’t in pain, and was still talking and making us laugh until he took his last breath. You are not in pain anymore Dilly my gorgeous boy’.
Following the match, England defender Stones paid tribute to the little boy, saying he ‘touched’ the hearts of the footballer and his family.
The Manchester City star said: ‘Tonight was for Dillan. A special little boy that touched mine and my family’s hearts. He’s an inspiration to us all.
‘Rest in peace little fighter, our thoughts are with his family during this unimaginably difficult time.’
Dillan was diagnosed during the first coronavirus lockdown in May 2020. He was told at the time he had a 93 per cent chance of survival.
The little boy was forced to go through three years of intense chemotherapy that made life ‘hell’ for him and his family and they initially thought he had beaten the illness.
However, he relapsed in August 2022 and then again in March and August 2023.
Before the shocking ordeal, mother-of-three Amy, thought her happy football-loving son had a sprain and bruises from kicking a ball around before a diagnosis revealed the truth.
Dillan underwent a bone marrow transplant in December 2022 after a campaign to find a match was successful.
A testing event was held at Manchester City’s Ethiad Stadium and was attended by Stones. His girlfriend Olivia Naylor also donated £20,000 to Dillan’s fundraiser for a last clinical trial to beat his cancer.
But sadly Dillan relapsed again and doctors in the UK had run out of options.
The family flew to Washington in the US for further treatment.
Issuing an update on a GoFundMe page back in February this year, mother Amy said the family were in ‘complete shock’ after bone marrow results showed cancer.
She wrote at the time: ‘We have been told to enjoy this time whilst he’s well, and there are no further treatments for Dillan.
‘I won’t stop fighting for Dillan until he closes his eyes, but for now we want to concentrate on making memories with him that he has missed out on over the last 4 years.’
Before the youngster was diagnosed Amy noticed he started waking up in the middle of the night screaming as if he was in pain.
‘I took him to the doctors, they checked him over and put it down to nightmares or sleep regression. They just couldn’t find anything wrong with him,’ Amy previously told .
‘A week later he started to limp and he had bruising on his legs. He’s quite boisterous and loves football so we just assumed he kicked something by mistake.’
She took Dillan back to the doctor who told her ‘it looks like a sprain and because of his age will heal in a week or two’.
A few days later, Amy’s partner Oguz Aksehir noticed Dillan had ‘really swollen lymph nodes on his neck and jaw’.
‘I booked him in with the doctor again but it was a 48-hour wait to get him seen because at that time Covid was still quite new and everyone was being super cautious,’ Amy said.
It was during that waiting period that Dillan started to get tiny bruises around his eyes.
When the family finally saw a doctor, they were in the room for two minutes and the physician took one look a Dillan and knew exactly what was wrong.
‘We were given two referral letters to go to A&E – one for his leg and one for his lymph nodes and facial bruising,’ Amy said.