Wandering in the vast darkness

018 Walking with Illness

Yu Wenhao walked out of the conference room and looked down at his phone. Just as he had excitedly shouted "Great!", Professor Zheng was still sending him messages. Yu Wenhao continued reading, and the smile on his face froze instantly, his heart sinking.

Professor Zheng said, "After the bone marrow registry interviewed the four donors, one of them said that he was not available to donate at the moment, while the other three agreed to donate."

Professor Zheng continued, "However, the current matching for these three donors is low-resolution, which means you will need to pay for their blood samples to be sent to the HLA laboratory at the Red Cross Blood Center for high-resolution matching."

Yu Wenhao walked out of the office building and headed towards his own office, feeling a chill in his heart, a sense of joy turning to sorrow. The fact that he and Cao Fang were not a match had already dealt them a heavy blow. As for Qianqian contracting the disease, Yu Wenhao and Cao Fang felt unlucky enough. He no longer believed that he could have any good luck, let alone any miracles.

He was telling himself that he wasn't that lucky to find four perfect matches for Qianqian so easily. It was impossible.

Since Qianqian was diagnosed with leukemia, Yu Wenhao joined several WeChat and QQ groups for leukemia patients. The groups were filled with lamentations, and he learned a lot about the disease. He realized how difficult it is to find a perfect match with ten points of similarity, like finding a needle in a haystack. It's not that simple.

Yu Wenhao sighed.

He returned to his office, sat down, and calmed himself down for a while. Although he felt he wasn't that lucky, he was still secretly unwilling to give up and still wanted to believe in a miracle. After much consideration, he decided not to tell Cao Fang yet and to wait for the results of the high-level matching.

Since her daughter fell ill, Cao Fang has been in a state of constant tension and anxiety, seeing everything as a potential source of infection for Qianqian. Yu Wenhao thought to herself that she couldn't bear another rollercoaster ride from hope to utter despair.

Yu Wenhao drove alone to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, found Professor Zheng to help him complete the procedures, paid 3,000 yuan to each of the three donors for blood samples, and made HLA typing reports for Qianqian and the donors.

A little over a week later, Professor Zheng called Yu Wenhao and asked him to come over. After several meetings, Yu Wenhao and Professor Zheng had become friends. When he received Professor Zheng's call, Yu Wenhao immediately knew the answer. He knew that if there was good news, Professor Zheng would happily tell him on the phone.

The reason for calling him over was to comfort him in person.

Sure enough, when Yu Wenhao arrived at Professor Zheng's office, Professor Zheng saw him, shrugged, and sighed, saying:

"Xiaoyu, I'm sorry, the report is out, all three of them are only partially compatible."

Looking at the HLA report in front of him, Yu Wenhao said with a wry smile:

"It's alright, Professor Zheng. Actually, I've already accepted this result in my heart. I knew it; no one is that lucky. How could you win the lottery so easily? Getting this disease is like winning the lottery once, right?"

Professor Zheng smiled wryly and said it was alright. He said that they had contact with the bone marrow registry and cord blood bank in Taiwan, and that their databases were very rich. He would help him submit a matching application to them.

Yu greeted him and quickly said thank you, "Thank you, Professor Zheng."

As a result, no suitable match was found for Qianqian in Taiwan.

All that's left is to wait. Besides taking imatinib to control the mild symptoms and treating it as a chronic condition for the long term, there's no better way than to wait.

Professor Zheng said to Yu Wenhao, "Don't worry, I will replenish the storage for Qianqian every now and then, as long as they update the storage capacity."

The China Spinal Cord Registry will continue to receive new donors, and the database will become increasingly rich. Professor Zheng and Yu Wenhao said that Qianqian is still young and her condition is under control. They will wait and eventually find a perfect match.

More than a year passed, but Qianqian still hadn't reached school age. More importantly, she continued to suffer from illness. Yu Wenhao and Cao Fang saw this and felt deeply pained. Not being able to go to school wasn't so bad; Cao Fang stayed home to teach Qianqian, so that once she recovered and was able to attend school, she wouldn't fall behind.

With only Wenhao and Cao Fang's salaries, they were already struggling to make ends meet, having to pay their mortgage, cover Qianqian's medical expenses and other costs each month. They also needed to save money for Qianqian, as the bone marrow transplant would cost hundreds of thousands of yuan once a perfect match was found, and they had to be well-prepared.

And so, not long after Qianqian fell ill, Yu Wenhao started working part-time as a ride-hailing driver.

The two of them had considered selling the house, but they realized that even if they sold it and rented another place, they would still need several thousand yuan in rent each month, which would be about the same as paying off the mortgage.

With a leukemia patient in their family, many landlords might not be willing to rent to them. Qianqian also couldn't bear the hassle of constantly moving when renting. She still needed a stable home. In the end, they decided to keep the house.

Cao Fang and Yu Wenhao suggested that they sell the car, since they now live close to home and don't need to drive anymore.

Cao Fang used to work as a cashier at a steel pipe factory in Qibao, and her commute was relatively convenient. When both of them were at work, there was no other way but to leave Qianqian alone at home. At noon, Cao Fang would rush home to cook for Qianqian, and after Qianqian finished eating, she would go back to work.

Yu Wenhao doesn't get home until late at night, only sleeps for three or four hours, and has to get up at 5:30 in the morning to drive. At noon, Cao Fang tells him to rest at the factory for a while and not to come back, otherwise he won't have time to rest while running back and forth.

Not long after, at the end of the year before last, Cao Fang's factory was demolished and moved to Haining. If Cao Fang continued to work, she would have to leave early and return late, and she would not be able to come back at noon. There would be no one to take care of Qianqian.

After discussing it, the two of them had no choice but to have Cao Fang resign and stay home to take care of Qianqian.

But after Cao Fang resigned, the family suddenly became strapped for cash because of her income. Even though Yu Wenhao worked part-time as a ride-hailing driver and worked very hard, they couldn't save much money in a month.

It was Er Mao, Yu Wenhao's classmate. When Er Mao was working at the municipal tax bureau, he was transferred to the street office where Yu Wenhao's neighborhood was located, where he served as the deputy director of the street office.

When Er Mao learned of Cao Fang's situation, he went to ask his old colleague for help. His colleague gave him face and immediately helped Cao Fang make contact, arranging for her to work at the property management office of Yu Wenhao's community. Although the salary was much less than before, it was better than nothing and could still alleviate some of their pressure.

More importantly, the property management office didn't have much work to begin with, and since it was located within the community, Cao Fang only needed to put a sign on her desk with her mobile phone number for contact in case of any issues, and she could run off to help. This gave Cao Fang more time to take care of Qianqian than before.

This can be considered one of the good things they've encountered since Qianqian fell ill.

After Cao Fang started working at the community property management office, her car was parked in the parking lot, and she didn't need to drive it much. So she thought she might as well sell her car.

Yu Wenhao thought about it for a moment, but still didn't agree. He said, "It's not that time yet. Although you don't drive much now, every time you go out is important. You have to go to the hospital every few days. Now there's an epidemic. If you take Qianqian by taxi or subway, what if she gets infected, or accidentally goes to some place and gets traced and both of you are sent to a makeshift hospital for quarantine?"

"Let's hold on a little longer. Anyway, Qianqian hasn't reached the point where she needs a large sum of money yet."

Yu Wenhao spoke to Cao Fang, and after thinking about it, Cao Fang realized that Yu Wenhao's words made sense, so she stopped insisting.