Who Is Shi Luyao

In order not to miss school, an 11-year-old leukaemia patient has been travelling hundreds of kilometres between his home and the hospital where he is receiving treatment over the past year.

Shi Luyao is from Bengjing village in Liupanshui city, Guizhou province. His mother left when he was just two-years-old because of poverty and never came back. The boy has lived with his grandparents since.

When Luyao was in third grade, his father took him to Anhui province where he worked. But in 2013, this all changed when Luyao developed a high fever. A medical check-up showed that he had acute lymphocytic leukaemia, a type of leukaemia commonly found in children. To cure the disease, the boy had to receive long-term chemotherapy.

The medical bills for the treatment were high. As the hospital was not in their home province, only 30% of the bill was covered by insurance. Luyao's father was forced to borrow 200,000 yuan (RM123,775) over two years.

In the later stages of the chemotherapy, Luyao was cared for by his grandmother as his father had to return work to afford the treatment. In August last year, Luyao returned to his hometown in Guizhou province, but he had to have bone marrow biopsies to monitor his condition.

To ease the financial burden on his family, the boy started going to a hospital in Kunming, more than 400km away from his home to receive treatment all by himself. He takes a bus to Liupanshui city, before boarding a train to Kunming. The first time he went for treatment himself, the boy waited for six hours at the railway station to catch the train heading for Kunming at 3am.

"I wanted to cry, but stopped myself as I did not want other people to know I was all alone," said Luyao. After each bone marrow biopsy, Luyao was supposed to rest in bed for several hours.

However, he fought through the pain and went back home each night because he did not want to miss classes. When he arrived at Liupanshui, he waited for the dawn to break at the railway station before taking a home-bound bus.

"I can't remember how many times I saw the sunrise at the railway station," Luyao said, bursting into tears. Luyao had to leave school for two years due to the leukaemia but he never quit learning.

During that time, he borrowed books to revise any lessons learnt before he fell ill, along with new fifth-grade courses all on his own. After his condition improved, the boy asked his grandparents to send him back to school.

"He was down and lonely, but he scored surprisingly good grades," said Peng Lu, Luyao's Chinese-language teacher.

Peng said that the boy has remained at the top of the class since he returned to school. Each time he came back from the hospital, the boy would hand in his homework on time, she said.

Peng said she was surprised when she first learnt the boy was suffering from leukaemia. To make Luyao feel less lonely, she arranged for four classmates to study with him and take care of him.

According to Luyao's doctor, his treatment has entered its later stage and he can recover without having a bone marrow transplant. The treatment is expected to take another two years.