This story is about a 10-year-old boy in Malaysia who underwent stem cell donation to save his father with leukemia, and still had to say goodbye.
On Sunday night, March 8, Leong Chun Hao took his last breath.
He was 30 years old.
Beside him, in a manner of speaking, was the memory of everything his 10-year-old son had endured to try and keep him alive.
It had started months earlier, on the other side of the South China Sea.
The call nobody wants to receive
Chun Hao had been building a life in the Philippines, working as a translator for a logistics company, when his body began sending signals he could no longer ignore.
The dizziness came first, then the breathlessness, the fevers that wouldn’t break, and a blurring of vision that made daily life increasingly difficult.
When he finally went for tests, the findings left little room for hope, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), with 75% of his blood cells already taken over by cancer.
Doctors were direct: Without a bone marrow transplant, his chances were slim.
Chemotherapy began. So did the search for a donor.
The most compatible match was his own 10-year old son
When compatibility tests came back, the results pointed to one person – Kun Xuan, Chun Hao’s son, who was back home in Ipoh.
The boy was 10. Without flinching, he said yes.
For four straight days, Kun Xuan endured injections to stimulate stem cell production in his body. He then went through two stem cell collection procedures under general anaesthesia, a process demanding enough for any adult, let alone a child.
A nation showed up in under two hours
When One Hope Charity, a welfare organisation based in Bukit Mertajam, launched a fundraising campaign for Chun Hao’s treatment, the public responded in a way that stopped people in their tracks.
The RM60,000 target was met in 1 hour and 48 minutes.
Chairman Datuk Cai Rui Hao said the reaction spoke to how profoundly the story of a father and son had resonated with strangers across the country.
The transplant went ahead. Chun Hao’s body entered a critical observation period as doctors monitored whether it would accept the donated cells.
What he leaves behind
It did not go as hoped. Complications set in during recovery, and on March 8, Chun Hao was gone.
One Hope Charity released a statement on Facebook on behalf of the family, thanking every single person who had donated, shared, prayed or simply taken a moment to care.
It ended with these words: “May Chun Hao rest in peace. The deepest love between this father and son will always remain in everyone’s hearts.”
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