Lu Zikuan was 10 years old and had just one problem: he weighed too little to save his father. 🫀
When Lu Yanheng was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in Henan province, China, doctors found a solution: a bone marrow transplant. The ideal donor already existed: his own son. The obstacle was brutal and concrete: Lu Zikuan weighed just 30 kilos, and the procedure required a minimum of 45. Without that weight, the extracted cells would not be enough to save an adult. So the boy made a decision that few adults would be capable of making: he sat down to eat.
For three months, between March and June 2019, Lu ate five meals a day on a diet designed to force his body to grow. He suffered reflux, nausea, and vomiting. At school, his classmates made fun of his new figure without knowing anything about what was happening. He said nothing. He just kept eating. He gained 15 kilos. In September 2019, on his father’s birthday, Lu Zikuan entered an operating room at a hospital in Beijing, remained still and silent throughout the entire extraction under local anesthesia, and gave him his bone marrow. The transplant was a success. ✨
