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Plano teen meets the bone marrow donor who saved his life

I think that I just have a lot of gratitude to be here right now and to have this experience," said donor Sarah Yang.

DALLAS — When Sarah Yang was a college student at Columbia University, she took a required philosophy course. 

Lessons she learned about "serving the greater good," apparently stuck. Because the beneficiary of her choices that year turned out to be a teenager in Plano who needed her magnanimous decisions for his own survival.

When we first met Chi Heng Chan this past February, it was already a pretty happy occasion.

"I am so thankful that you donated to me," he wanted to say to the anonymous bone marrow donor who helped him survive leukemia.

Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in May 2019, the first chemotherapy treatment he received was not enough. 

Doctors recommended Chi Heng a bone marrow transplant but none of his immediate family members were a close enough match. Instead, they searched the Be The Match registry, a national database of willing donors, to find a potential match. They found a 100% match.

Two years after his transplant surgery at Children’s Health, Chi Heng is in remission. But his donor, who they were and where they were from, was still a mystery.

That was until Friday.

"Hi, I'm Sarah nice to meet you," Sarah Yang said as she walked into a pre-arranged meeting at Children's Health in Dallas.

As a college student, she was aware that ethnic minorities are not as well represented on national registries. As an Asian-American, she wanted to help improve the odds.

"It's almost indescribable," she said of the phone call she received telling her that the simple saliva swab she submitted years ago had yielded a potential match.  

"Certainly donating bone marrow is hard, but going through a bone marrow transplant is harder," she said of what Chi Heng has had to endure in his battle with leukemia. "I think that I just have a lot of gratitude to be here right now and to have this experience."

"Very exciting to see you looking so happy and vibrant," Yang said as she and Chi Heng embraced for the first time. "I'm grateful to be a small part of your story."  

"I can't thank you enough," he responded.

"Well, his leukemia would have continued to relapse and ultimately he wouldn't have survived. And so this is a life-saving thing that Sarah did," said Victor Aquino, MD, Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist at Children's Health.

"A very special day," Chi Heng told us.

Thanks to the bone marrow transplant, Chi Heng is in remission, taking dual credit courses at Collin College and maintains a 4.0 GPA.

"Entering yourself into the registry is like one more chance in a million that someone gets their life back, a second life," he said. "You could be saving someone's life which is just amazing."

"I'm so glad you're feeling better," Sarah Yang said as the two hugged.

The families exchanged gifts and promised to stay in touch. Yang, ironically, now has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and works for a cancer diagnostics company. But she said she considers herself just a normal person offering to help someone else.

"And I think there's something very powerful in that, right?" She said. "Anyone can get sick at any time and anyone can play a role in helping them. I feel so touched and happy to be part of his story."

But, science aside, they joked there might be one slight concern.

"Yeah so you and I have the same blood now," Yang joked. "So if we commit any crimes, like, we always have an alibi," she said as both families laughed.

"Just let me know beforehand," she responded.

If you would like to get more information on the bone marrow donation process, you can find the Be The Match link here.

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