‘A simple act of kindness’: Hong Kong bone marrow donor meets recipient for first time
- Dicky Chan, who became a bone marrow donor at the age of 25, urges young people to sign up for registry to save more lives
- The 63-year-old recipient, who only gave her surname Tam, suffered from follicular lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system
Dicky Chan was delighted when he got the chance to save a life five years ago after doctors discovered he was a one in 10,000 match for a Hong Kong cancer patient in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.
“I was very excited because it’s exceptionally difficult to find a match,” Chan said. “It’s just a simple act of kindness. I could not believe that we were a perfect match based on the small possibility.”
Chan, 30, met the stranger whose life he had saved five years after the transplant on Thursday at a press conference arranged by the Hong Kong Red Cross.
The 63-year-old recipient, who only gave her surname, Tam, suffered from follicular lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.
The cancer came back in 2017 and she urgently needed a bone marrow transplant, but her two sisters were not a match.
Chan, who has been a frequent blood donor since he was 19, signed up with the Hong Kong Red Cross bone marrow donor registry when he was 25.
He was told by the registry in 2018 that he was a match for Tam. There is only a one in 10,000 chance of finding a match, with about one-third, or 50, of the patients being able to find a donor each year, according to doctors.
During the 40-minute transplant procedure, Chan was put under general anaesthetic. The bone marrow stem cells, which are mostly accessible near the pelvis, were extracted using a long needle.
