THE dream Choi Kit-chung has held on to for the past 18 months comes true today.
He is leaving the Prince of Wales Hospital for home, taking with him a new bicycle that appeared beside his bed the day after the South China Morning Post told his story to help launch this year's Operation Santa Claus.
Eight-year-old Kit-chung yearned for a normal life, just to be able to ride a bicycle like other children.
But instead, he was making medical history on November 29 by becoming the first Hong Kong patient to undergo a bone marrow transplant for a neuroblastoma - a solid tumour in the adrenal gland.
The autologous transplant (using his own bone marrow) was his only hope of survival, and it carried only a 30 to 40 per cent chance of success.
Today, just two days short of 18 months to the day he was admitted to hospital, his wishes come true.
His is not the only success of Operation Santa Claus, the campaign conducted by RTHK Radio 3 and the Post to benefit the institutions that find marrow donors and do the transplants that save lives.