A COUPLE has decided that when their 6-year-old daughter passes away after her battle with kidney tumor they will donate her body and corneas, the Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

    The girl’s mother, surnamed Yang, and father signed an organ donation form Sunday at Shenzhen Baihe Hospital in Longgang District.

    The family, from Hunan Province, has been traveling to Guangzhou and Shenzhen over the past few months to get medical treatment for their girl, who was identified as Rui.

    According to Yang, her daughter was diagnosed with a tumor in her kidney in April, and the tumor spread to her whole body even after doctors in Guangzhou removed one of her kidneys.

    After persistent chemotherapy treatments, Rui has lost all of her hair and is wasting away day by day. Yang and her husband brought Rui to Shenzhen in hopes that a miracle would occur, but a month ago they were told by the doctors that their daughter wouldn’t be cured.

    Yang said that Rui was a smart and beautiful girl, who had often helped Yang take care of her younger brother who was born two years ago. “I was content with my life and what I had, but fate has played a cruel joke on me, ” Yang said.

    Yang said that the family had spent all of their savings to cover the cost of Rui’s treatments, and that many people had offered them financial and spiritual support, which was one of the reasons why Rui survived so long. The couple said that they wanted to pass on the love that Rui received from these people by donating her body.

    Her father said that they had failed to fulfill Rui’s dream of traveling around the world, so he hoped the people who receive her corneas in the future may help her realize this dream by going to different places and seeing wonderful things “through her eyes.”

    Wu Yaochen, the hospital’s honorary president, said that Rui was experiencing multiple organ failure, and all the hospital could do now was reduce her pain as much as possible in her remaining days.

    The donation of Rui’s body and corneas will be honored after she passes away, but her other organs can’t be donated, because of the nature of her illness, according to Zhi Rui, a coordinator with the Red Cross Society in Shenzhen.

    (Zhang Yang)