Sunday, November 30, 2008

China adoptee needs bone marrow transplant

Every time I hear a story like this, it strikes a chord of fear. When you have no information about birth family, no way to contact them, you have to worry about what would happen if your child needed a transplant. It's impossible not to personalize the story and feel overwhelming sympathy. Lydia's story also offers hope of finding birth family in China.

Five-year-old Lydia has leukemia and her American adoptive parents are looking for her biological family in China for a bone marrow transplant to save her life:
''We all knew that the chances of getting hit by lightning were probably greater,'' Mark said. ''It would be very unlikely for a child and a birth family to reconnect,'' Monica agreed. ''Very unlikely. Pretty much everyone said, 'It will never happen.'''

Everyone, it seems, except for one doctor-turned-detective at Akron Children's Hospital, who just happened to be from the same Chinese province as Lydia. Dr. Xiaxin Li, the new director of the bone-marrow transplant program at Akron Children's, was determined to find Lydia's birth family back in his homeland — and, in the process, to find a possible cure for his young patient.

''If they're a local family,'' he told Lydia's parents, ''they'll come forward.''

And now it appears possible that some of them might soon be coming to America to save her.
Read more here.

P.S. Here's a link to the family's blog.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

["We all knew that the chances of getting hit by lightning were probably greater."]

That comment alone nearly made me choke up on behalf of that little girl and her parents.

Please... someone please find a match for this little girl.

*praying*

Jeff and Madeline said...

I hope her birthparents go through with it or allow her siblings. I know it seems to have been touch and go.

Anonymous said...

I found myself teary eyed reading this. Can you imagine - getting her bone marrow from her long lost birth sibling AND also the gift of knowing who her birth family are? I wish I knew what form of leukemia she has, I am assuming it is not ALL from the article.
I hope this family follows through. If they already went so far as to test the birth sister, I bet they will.

Louanne said...

I have been closely following this story and am now in tears. I pray that the US and China will let her family come here and that it will work out.

Anonymous said...

She has AML. I found her Mom's blog. Prayers needed, may God Bless Lydia and her family.

Anonymous said...

Lydia's birth family has been found
there is a long article in the
Ohio newspaper about it. They are
now getting ready to bring the
family over from China. Her doctor
and the orphanage director helped
alot. Mary

. said...

We amy be wrtiting to the converted here, but please see the link >

http://about-orphans.blogspot.com