Generous donors take pride in task
Print Edition
JINSHAN District has a pool of almost 5,500 registered stem cell donors, and 21 have made successful donations to help save 21 lives during the past 13 years.
The donors come from all walks of life — teachers, factory workers, doctors, civil servants, farmers and entrepreneurs, among many others. Their stem cells were transported and have saved people in Tianjin, Chongqing, Sichuan and Hubei provinces, and even the UK.
“I think it’s an astonishing act of human generosity,” said Li Meiling, executive vice president of the Jinshan District Red Cross.
Since 1998, the Jinshan Red Cross has held stem cells donation drives in the district’s towns and villages. In 2010, a total of 507 people joined the donors’ pool, the most of all Shanghai’s districts that year. In 2013, 490 people signed up, again ranking the district first in Shanghai.
Since last year, the donation drive has been increased from once a year to seven times a year. At the same time, the donors’ team is expanding and more people are joining in like a relay race.
The 18th donor, Pan Weizhong, was motivated by the sixth donor, his colleague Shen Bo. When told in 2013 that he was matched to a 27-year-old woman in Hubei Province, the overweight Pan started to go on a strict diet to improve his physical condition for the donation. He stopped dining out in restaurants, refused to eat greasy, oily food, ate more vegetables and went jogging everyday.
Two months later, he had lost more than 10 kilograms.
“I knew someone was waiting for my stem cells and I couldn’t let her down,” Pan recalled.
As the son of a doctor, Mao Jun might know better the meaning of giving. In 1995, the third year of the city’s stem cell-donation program, Mao joined the donors’ pool. But it wasn’t until 2010 that he was matched to a patient and made a donation.
“I’ve waited for many years and finally I could make my contribution,” Mao said.
Though everyone else in the family supported him, his mother-in-law was against it.
“I just got married that year and my wife and I planned to have a baby. My mother-in-law was worried that the donation would affect the child,” he said.
Even now, some people fear that stem cell donations harm a donor’s health, that it is giving away essential body parts. Mao explained to her patiently over and over again, and finally his mother-in-law was reassured.
Mao will remember August 28, 2010, the rest of his life. On that day, he and his wife got their marriage certificate in the local civil bureau before he threw a birthday party for his wife. He then went to Ruijin Hospital, preparing for the donation procedure.
The recipient was a 17-year-old student. The donation went smoothly. “Each time when I look back, I am so happy and proud that I made a correct decision — there is someone out there who survived because of me,” Mao says.
The following year, his wife, three months pregnant, also signed up for the stem cell registry.
To do one good thing is better than to burn 1,000 joss sticks to the Buddha. This is what Zhu Gang, 57, Jinshan’s first stem cell donor, believes.
“I just happened to be the first one, but actually I did a thing that was worth doing,” the man said.
In September 2001, Zhu and his wife, Zhang Yongmei, joined the donors’ pool, an unusual way to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. Just months later, in March 2012, he was informed that he was matched to a 37-year-old female leukemia patient in Henan Province.
“It was like fate was knocking on my door,” Zhu recalled.
He shared the good news with his wife, Zhang.
“I always thought I would be earlier than him. Well, he was luckier,” the wife said with a smile.
One year after the donation, Zhu received a thank-you letter from the patient.
“I did this asking for nothing in return. If there has to be something I expect, it should be I wish the patient is living healthy,” Zhu said.
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