A nine-year-old Colorado boy hugged his favorite plush toy last Friday at Memorial Hospital for Children in Colorado Springs where he would undergo treatment for acid reflux.

Pediatric gastroenterologist Christine Waasdorp Hurtado said the wolf had an inch-long hole in the seam of one of his shoulders. She quietly sewed up the animal while Joshua was going under anesthesia, reported a news producer at CNN's iReport.

"She put a bandage on the wolf's ‘intravenous site' and brought him out with a surgical mask and gloves on his paws. ‘It took me 5 minutes and it made such a huge difference for him,' Hurtado said."

"That stuffed animal means the world to him," his father Ken Wade posted on Facebook. "That's his baby, and to know they thought enough of him to take care of his little baby is sweet."

CNN's iReport says: Within a couple days of returning home, Joshua took off the wolf's bandages and pronounced him ‘all better.' Joshua is also doing well on a new gluten-free diet.

(READ more from CNN's iReport)