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SCMP Reporter

LIKE most bright, energetic three-year-olds, Yau Tsz-ying loves a bit of rough-and-tumble play - but the prospect makes her parents freeze with fear.

  What Tsz-ying does not know is that her idea of fun could kill her.

  Nor does she know that standing in the way of achieving life-long security is $116,000 - a sum far beyond the modest means of her parents, father Yau Lai-man, 34, a driver, and mother Yau Lau Mo-kit, 33.

  Tsz-ying suffers from a malformation in her blood vessels, a condition found in 100 to 200 Hong Kong people each year.

  Sufferers have a fragile bundle of abnormal blood vessels where their veins join an artery. The vessels break easily, causing internal bleeding.

  The problem for Tsz-ying is that her bundle is located in a crucial part of her brain.

  According to doctors, any bleeding there could result in brain damage.

  It could also kill her.

  Tsz-ying's condition was unknown until she hit her head in a fall in July. A couple of days later she went into a coma that lasted two days. She was kept in Tuen Mun Hospital for two months.

  ''We felt terrible when we found out,'' Mrs Yau said at her Tuen Mun home yesterday.

  ''We felt very, very sad, and very bad inside - why should our daughter have this? We blamed ourselves.''   Dr Dawson Fong To-sang, of Tuen Mun Hospital's Department of Neurosurgery, said conventional surgery was not possible because it would probably cause brain damage or even death.

  The only chance for Tsz-ying is to be treated with a gamma knife, a sophisticated piece of equipment which directs a beam of radiation precise to within one millimetre.

  ''These doses [of radiation] won't cause any damage to other parts of the brain,'' Dr Fong said.

  But the treatment is not available here, despite requests by neurosurgeons for the $2 million to $3 million machine.

  Instead, Hong Kong patients have to make the costly trip to Nagoya, Japan - a trip that Dr Fong estimates has been made by 20 to 30 local patients over the past year.

  The treatment in Nagoya costs US$15,000 (HK$116,000) on top of air tickets and accommodation.

  ''We can't afford that,'' Mr Yau said. ''I earn only $8,000 per month.''   The Yau family are desperately trying to raise money in time to send Tsz-ying to Nagoya next month when a slot is available.

  More importantly, they want to go before Tsz-ying suffers another, possibly fatal, bleeding.

  Dr Fong said there was a very high chance of that happening.

  ''We are frightened for her,'' Mrs Yau said.

  On Dr Fong's advice, Tsz-ying is being kept away from school and prevented from playing lively games with nine-year-old sister Pui-ying.

  But it is difficult to keep a three-year-old still for long and time is running out.



Games pose fatal risk to tragic toddler