2009 top ten news
Top 10 heart-warming moments 2009
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-18 10:19
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10. Save moonlight, the Xinjiang leukemia girl
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 Ayinuer Humatai (R) walks with a doctor at hospital in Tianjin. [people.com.cn] |
Ayinuer Humatai from Tianjin-based Nankai University suffered from pain in her waist and returned to her dorm in the morning of September 28. It didn't get any better later that day. She also had a fever. Her schoolmates took her to a hospital at 8 pm.
An ill omen was brewing as the night dwindled into the small hours. A preliminary analysis indicated the Kazakh girl from Altay city of inland Xinjiang autonomous region was suffering leukemia. A final diagnosis two days later on Sept. 30 painted the nightmare only worse -- it was acute lymphoma cell leukemia that brooked no delay in treatment.
Ayinuer's family on a rangeland was distraught at the news out of the blue, emotionally as much as financially. The subsequent therapy could cost up to one million yuan. Worse still, her bread-earner mom and retired father, both in poor health, were already burdened by medical bills for themselves. The college girl who studied social work all but paid her tuitions and board on subsidized student loans.
However, it was a ruthless race against time. Her college mates and teachers drafted out a 17-page plan for donation campaign as well as a multi-shift attendance schedule right on the day of diagnosis, as an overwrought Bahedanguli, Ayniuer's mother, hurried to the hospital.
During the immediate week after, when the country was immersed in its 60th national day holiday, Ayniuer's classmates were buried in the fundraising campaign. The whole university was mobilized, so was the seaside municipality. Front-pages of local newspapers were filled with banner headlines calling for donations for "the moonlight", the Kazakh meaning of her name Ayniuer. Even as the horror from Xinjiang riots months earlier barely faded away, endowments for the ethnic girl jumped to 100,000 yuan (US$14,160) in the first seven days. News reached Ayniuer's hometown and the Xinjiang government offered a helping hand, setting up a 500,000 yuan (US$70,800) healthcare fund for needy students like Ayniuer.
Good news came in early December that Anyniuer would have a marrow transplant around mid-February as her second gene test matched with a suitable donor.
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 Nankai students volunteer on a fundraising campaign for Ayinuer Humatai. [people.com.cn] |
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 A handout photo of Ayinuer Humatai in her dorm at Nankai before she was diagnosed of an acute leukemia. [people.com.cn]
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