Young woman donates bone marrow to total stranger
Ariel Lam signed up as a donor to help a friend but ended up helping a man she has never met
Ariel Lam Yi-tak, 23, had almost forgotten that she signed on to the bone-marrow registry when she was told last year that her sample was a potential match for a total stranger.
The young woman struggled with her choices. She had joined the registry in 2012 meaning to help a leukaemia-afflicted friend, but was then told that she was not a suitable match. Now, faced with a painful procedure and potential complications just to help a stranger out, she feared the pain might be too much to bear.
But in the end, she decided to go ahead with further tests and, if suitable, a donation.
“I’m like a housewife -- a good bargain makes me happy,” she said, laughing. “If I could bear some pain for maybe a week in exchange for someone’s chance of survival, isn’t that a great bargain?”
She was very surprised when doctors told her she was a 100 per cent match with the patient, a one-in-10,000 chance.
“God knows I couldn’t escape from it,” she said.