This is a story about a little boy who wouldn’t give up.

On October 22nd, 2007, UFCO received a phone call from a woman who told us about a little boy who had been abandoned by his parents and was living on a cart in a hospital. He had jaundice though no one knew what it was that was wrong with him. The board agreed UFCO should get involved and on October 27th, he arrived in Beijing and was admitted to Beijing United Family Hospital for further testing. Although no one was sure if we could help him medically, we knew that at the very least we could find a safe, caring foster home that would take him.

The test results showed that he had biliary atresia and the doctors thought that a Kasai Procedure could help alleviate his symptoms until a possible liver transplant was needed. About a week later it was confirmed that his liver in fact had been so damaged that he needed a liver transplant as soon as possible. They had also found a tumor on the liver. One week later he was admitted to the Er Yan Suo Children’s Hospital and underwent additional tests.

During that time there was consideration of using a living donor who had offered to help as he had the same blood type O as Wei Hao. Unfortunately that plan did not work because of a new law that had been passed in May of 2007 stating that living donors had to be related to the patients in order to donate. The doctor told us that it would take about a month to find a cadaver liver and the surgery would cost around RMB250,000. We didn’t have any other options so we told them to start looking.

On November 25th, he was transferred to Wu Jing Zong Hospital as a top transplant surgeon agreed to do his surgery (and to do it at a discounted price). We waited many weeks. Two trained and loving caregivers lived in a room with him and played, fed and held him as we all waited for news that his liver had arrived. Some days there would be news of a liver only to later find out the liver was too small or too damaged. There were also days that he had a fever and the doctors told us if he didn’t receive his surgery during that week, he could die.

When Wei Hao first came to Beijing he was developmentally very behind. He had very little range of motion, barely cried and never played with anything. Even when you held him it was hard to get a smile out of him. The doctors were even afraid that his prolonged jaundice and liver damage had affected his mental abilities and ordered him to be tested at another hospital. He tested at the mental developmental stage of a 4 month old despite being 15 months old.

During the months of December and January Wei Hao began to change and developed his own personality! He loved standing on the bed with the help of his ayis and he loved “rou song” (dried meat) sprinkled on his “zhou” (porridge) and wouldn’t eat it without it. He loved being held and having his back patted while he slept. He would make these sounds of contentment as they patted his back and if they stopped, thinking he had falling asleep, he would begin to cry. He had been without for so long that he needed these little things to make him feel safe and calm.

On February 1st, a Friday, Wei Hao was admitted to the operating room. A liver that fit him just right had finally arrived! His surgery took 19.5 hours and the next day he went directly into the ICU. Wei Hao was doing well for the first 5 days following his surgery but on the 6th day developed a fever.

Because he is so young, there are not a lot of tests that they can do on him. The doctors were concerned that either a blood vessel was blocked or his body was rejecting the liver. If a blood vessel is blocked, there is not much they can do as performing another surgery is out of the question. If his body is rejecting the liver, there are ways to fix that problem. The results from the tumor on his liver have come back– he has a type of hepatocellular carcinoma that could spread despite already taking out the infected liver. All we can do at this point is continue to take it day by day. If Wei Hao’s story has taught us anything over the past 4 months, it’s that nothing is certain.

Those that thought a little boy abandoned by his parents, and left on his own for 3 months, wouldn’t survive were wrong.

Those that said this same little boy was too underdeveloped for his age that he might never catch up were also wrong.

And those that said he couldn’t live another week without a new liver were thankfully wrong.

*From the time we heard about Wei Hao, there has been a blog that told of his story. Many overseas and local Chinese have posted words of support and love for Wei Hao on this blog and they have also sent donations and committed to supporting him on a yearly basis. The donations received for Wei Hao so far total around RMB140,000. The costs incurred for his care total RMB170,000 and they continue to rise as each day in the ICU costs us another RMB6,000.

If you feel moved by Wei Hao’s story and would like to donate a monetary gift to go towards funding Wei Hao’s continuing medical treatment, please send a donation via paypal (the link is on our home page) or you can send a check to the US address (also found on our website under “How you can help!”). If you are in China and prefer to wire a donation please send me an email at foundation@ufh.com.cn and I will send you our Bank of China account details. All donations are eligible for tax deductions so please let us know if you need an official thank you letter.

Thank you,

Sarah on behalf of UFCO