Day Seventy-Three: the spirit of Christmas, in China

A classic heartwarmer today, courtesy of the Indian newswire. Kailee Wells was born in Hunan, China, in 1997 and abandoned soon afterwards. She was brought to the US by her adoptive parents. But in 2002, at the age of five, she was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia, a rare and potentially fatal blood disorder similar to leukaemia. By Christmas 2003, having been given a very poor prognosis by successive doctors, even poor Kailee believed she might not see another Christmas. So her parents went on their own search for a bone marrow donor, eventually returning to China to find a match for Kailee there. After one failed transplant, Kailee's family got lucky - a young doctor from Hangzhou was identified as a perfect match. The transplant was successful. Kailee is now ten (going on eleven) years old, healthy and doing well at school. This week she returned again to China, to meet her donor, Wang Lin - and this Christmas is launching her own recruitment drive for bone marrow donors in China, in the hope that other children will benefit too.