Born into a rural, poverty-stricken area in Vietnam, Dr. Huynh Thanh Tuan put all of his efforts into pursuing his dreams. Before he had reached 30, he had already become a qualified, talented neurosurgeon and his skills had saved many lives. Although he was contented and satisfied with his achievements thus far, his life was abruptly jolted when it was discovered that he had contracted leukemia.

Luckily, a bone marrow donor was found in Taiwan who stepped forward to provide the doctor with a new lease on life, and he traveled to Taiwan for the transplant.

"The doctors treated me like I was a member of their own family. They didn't just look after my illness; they were also concerned with my emotional state and offered help even if I showed the slightest sign of distress.

"Tzu Chi volunteers were always by my side. They guided my life to a new direction filled with confidence, blessings and warmth.

"Thanks to the bone marrow donor! You are the source of my new life, and I won't ever forget it for as long as I live!"

From the role of doctor to patient and then back to doctor again, Huynh Thanh Tuan's mission of medical work has been strengthened with a new purpose to help those who were once like him...

The balmy sunlight of early springtime brightened the landscape of northern Taiwan, and the changing season created a warm and moderate climate which spread throughout the land. Despite this, it was still not warm enough for Dr. Huynh Thanh Tuan, who was used to far higher temperatures in his home country, Vietnam. He wore a black wool hat, a long overcoat, and two masks. With his professional knowledge, he knew to protect himself.

Huynh was a newly employed neurosurgeon in Cho Ray Hospital, the largest hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. He had suffered greatly from blood cancer, but after close to nine months of treatment in Taiwan, he returned home.

Before leaving, he stopped for a moment to express his gratitude to those who had helped him. "Thanks to you all for supporting me and giving me a new life when my life was so close to ending. Now I feel that I possess a lot--both a new source of life and a new path in life. I want to especially thank the marrow donor. Although we have never seen each other, you have given me a new source of life and will forever be within me."　

The tricks that my fate played on me were too harsh--the darkest time of my life fell on January 16, 2005.　

At 3 am, Huynh was woken from sleep by an excruciating pain in his waist. He was sleeping in the Cho Ray Hospital resident doctors' dormitory. No matter how hard he tried to make himself comfortable and return to sleep, the pain soon grew unbearable. Finally, he tiptoed out of his room to avoid waking up his roommate. His professional training as a medical doctor told him that it was lumbar dislocation which was tormenting him.

Withstanding the pain for three more agonizing hours, Huynh finally phoned his girlfriend at 6 and asked her to take him to the hospital. The doctor diagnosed what Huynh had suspected: lumbar dislocation. He received two shots of painkiller and at last was able to rest for a few hours before leaving the hospital.

The following day, Huynh awoke in his bed at home with a raging fever of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Some medicine that he took lowered the fever slightly, but then it steadily rose again. The fever continued like this for two days, and finally Huynh went back to Cho Ray Hospital for help.

His platelet count was slightly lower than normal, and he had more white blood cells than normal. This led Huynh to think that he might have contracted dengue fever. Based on his own recommendations, he was transferred to the dengue fever ward. However, his condition did not improve: the number of white blood cells was dropping fast, and the fever persisted. The doctor was alarmed that his diagnosis was not as simple as he had expected; "The white blood cell index was only 600, and the platelets were also very low. Soon, my skin started to show bleeding spots."

On the fifth day, he underwent a bone marrow aspiration. He was completely numbed from head to toe at this intensely painful experience, and he concluded that he must be suffering from a marrow deficiency. "I was sent to the hematology ward, where I was tracked 24 hours a day."

The hospital had so many patients that there were two to three patients squeezed into one bed. To enable Huynh to receive a higher level of care, the hospital sent Huynh to the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital. Recalling these days, Huynh remembers, "It was a terribly depressing afternoon when my friends and colleagues surrounded the ambulance in order to see me off. I felt so tiny and pathetic."

People tried to offer comfort by saying that he was only suffering from marrow insufficiency, and Huynh desperately wanted to believe that this was so. Deep down he was terrified that it might be cancer.

His attending doctor at the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital was Dr. Huynh Nghia, who happened to be his former medical school teacher. On the day after his arrival, his teacher told him that he would undergo chemotherapy. Huynh felt like he was sinking into a bottomless pit of darkness. "That was the first time in my life that I had ever cried so hard. I cried because of all of the ambitions that I hadn't yet achieved and the chaotic fate which haunted me and wouldn't let me free."　

When my two bothers died in car accidents, I buried my grief and continued with my medical studies.　

The chaotic fate and ambitions which Huynh refers to stemmed from tragic incidents in his past, which indeed sparked his original desire to assist helpless people.

Born into a poor village in central Vietnam, Huynh's childhood was peaceful, and he liked playing with other children. He almost had to stay on for another year in first grade because he was unable to adjust to the new school life. Fortunately, his aunt, who was also a teacher, begged the school on his behalf. After this scare, his grades were always top of the class.

When he was in eighth grade, his sister, who had just graduated from university, suddenly fell sick and died tragically one week after hospitalization. Being so young, Huynh could not understand why this had happened. Knowing that his sister was still alive when she went in, he blamed the hospital for failing to save her.

He could not accept his sister's death, and when he overheard a conversation detailing how his sister had died from a blood infection, he vowed to become a doctor when he grew up. "I wanted to cure all patients, so they would never have to be sent back home covered with a piece of white cloth."

After junior high school, Huynh went to a high school about 10 kilometers (six miles) from home. Because transportation was poor and it took a long time to get to the school from his home, he had to live with a teacher. He would travel home each weekend to get a little rice and some money for the following week. His family was poor, but his mother did her best to prepare good food for him because she wanted her son to eat nutritional food in order to become stronger.

His mother's support, and his commitment to his studies, allowed him to move ahead with his ambition to become a doctor. Three years later, he graduated from high school, determined to go to medical school. No one in Huynh's village believed that he would attain his aspirations because he was simply a poor village boy. Most people thought he was just joking. His ambitions were as likely to happen as plucking the moon from the sky. "Everyone I knew, including my parents, suggested that I should lower my ambitions and go to a teachers university instead," he said.

However, despite all their skepticism, Huynh still sat for the entrance examinations for Truong Dai Hoc Y Duoc TP. Hochiminh (Pharmacy and Medicine University of Hochiminh City) and a medical college in Vung Tay Nguyen. After one month of waiting, he was accepted to both schools.

"When I received the news, it was a hot sunny day, but I rode my bicycle home as quickly as I could and told my parents of the good news. My mother wept with excitement."

However, there was hidden worry behind the excitement: How would they pay the tuition? Huynh comforted his parents by saying, "Don't worry, the days will go by fast. I will find a job and support myself."

After entering the Pharmacy and Medicine University of Hochiminh City, Huynh applied for a scholarship and worked as a tutor. His days were uneventful and tiresome, but he was happy and satisfied.

In his second year, another unforeseeable tragedy hit Huynh's family: one of his brothers died in a car accident. The family decided to hide the tragic news from Huynh, but he sensed that something was wrong in a letter from a friend, so he decided to travel home and find out. "That journey home was very long. When I arrived, I was faced with the scene of my brother's grave." Huynh is still heartbroken when he mentions the event.

Misfortunes never come alone. Seven months later, another brother was also injured in a car accident, and the hospital in his hometown did not have the right equipment to pinpoint the location of the bleeding in his head. Once more a young man's life perished like a falling leaf.

Despite his desire to become a doctor and save lives, the deaths of his brothers dragged him into a dark abyss of depression and lamentation. "I just wanted to quit everything and escape from the world," he said. However, an important examination was approaching, and Huynh considered how devastated his parents would be if he did not put all of his efforts into attaining the best grade possible. "If my grades fell, then it would have been even more heartbreaking for them." Therefore, he put his feelings aside and threw himself into completing his studies, vowing to become qualified as a brain surgeon.　

When the pink chemotherapy medicine went through my veins and into my body, it burned my blood vessels and destroyed all of my hopes and ambitions.　

In Vietnam, a medical student could not necessarily be guaranteed a job upon graduation. Huynh knew this very well. However, he overcame many difficulties and was the only graduate to become a resident neurosurgeon at the hospital he had trained in.

Huynh spent most of his time in the hospital operating room. He frequently performed surgeries from dawn until dusk every day without enough sleep. "My greatest satisfaction came from helping patients who were on the brink between life and death, to see them smile after they had almost died, and to witness the happiness of their families. It was enough to make up for any of the losses I had suffered in my life." When he was not working, he would patrol the wards and check up on how other patients were doing.

During the following three years, he won the trust of the attending doctors. He partook in over 300 brain surgeries, as well as 20 surgeries on broken vertebrae. His excellent reputation for saving lives was documented and reported in local newspapers. Even though Huynh was just a resident doctor, he was able to do what he had always dreamed of doing, and that gave him an enormous sense of satisfaction; "I was very happy during these times, because my wish to save precious lives had come true."

Nevertheless, the impermanence of life was to return and challenge him with the greatest test of all--the survival of his own existence. With one more year of residency ahead of him, Huynh was hit that fateful night by the agonizing pain which would turn him from doctor into patient. Acute marrow leukemia would force him to face the depths of a despair which he had never encountered before.

"When the pink chemotherapy medicine entered my body through my vein, it burned my blood vessels and destroyed all my hopes and ambition." He was assaulted by the sense of burning, nausea, vomiting, and the festering of membranes inside his mouth and his digestive system. "Just looking at food from a distance or occasionally dreaming about my favorite food was enough to make me throw up." When he woke up one morning, he was horrified by the sight of a huge pile of his hair on the pillow. He finally realized the full and dreadful extent of the suffering which cancer patients have to endure.

"I felt like a cripple." He became full of self-pity and demanded to live in a single room. He did not want other people to ask him about his job or his own case. Once, when his room needed to be sanitized, he was moved to another room with a younger patient. Huynh found that experience revitalizing, and momentarily his optimism was aroused by that patient's comment, "Life is full of ups-and-downs, so shouldn't we try to live our lives day by day?" Huynh said, "No one can predict what will happen next, so just try and accept all of the tricks that our fates play!"

Many people, whether I knew them or not, would treat me like their dear family members and be sincerely warm toward me. I started to feel that there was hope.　

Huynh's condition was like a bombshell within the Vietnamese medical field and was reported in the same media that had previously reported his achievements. People were so eager to help that even some patients whom he had treated on earlier occasions came to the hospital to offer encouragement. Others tried to raise money for him or do whatever they could to help him. An American friend found out about the Tzu Chi Foundation and contacted Tzu Chi's Vietnam office to ask for help.

"When we received Huynh's case, it was already two months after the start of his chemotherapy," said Lin Zhi-lang (林志郎), who was in charge of Tzu Chi's Vietnam office. Volunteers immediately visited him and discussed his case with his attending doctor, Huynh Nghia.

Recalling their visit, Huynh said, "The Tzu Chi volunteers were very friendly and displayed a great sense of understanding and brotherly affection in their outlooks. Their actions made me feel more hopeful."

Even though Huynh was a doctor, he only earned NT$5,000 (US$150) a month. After their initial meeting, Lin realized that this case would certainly not be solved just by a visit. A large amount of money was desperately required. This tormented Lin, who explained, "Huynh had to undergo a bone marrow transplant for his leukemia, but the cost would be enormous and the transplant technique was inadequate in Vietnam." However, the volunteers did not want to see a young man, and an excellent doctor who had saved so many lives, passing away like that. They were determined to raise money for him and find a matching marrow donor.

To send Huynh's blood sample to the Tzu Chi Bone Marrow Registry in Taiwan, the medical staff in the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital worked through the night. The sample was given to Tzu Chi volunteer Lai He-xiong (賴和雄), who often travels between Taiwan and Vietnam and was thus able to take the blood sample back to Taiwan. The bone marrow bank found a match in less than two weeks.

For reasons of safety, Dr. Huynh Nghia decided to send Huynh to Taiwan. He asked the National Taiwan University Hospital, which had assisted the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital in setting up a blood center in Vietnam several years ago, to treat him. Huynh's girlfriend, Le Thi Do Quyen, also took a leave of absence from her job to accompany him.

Before Huynh's departure on May 17, 2005, volunteers arranged for his mother and uncles from central Vietnam, along with his colleagues, to come and bid him farewell. Huynh became very emotional in their presence. He recalled, "I had never experienced such a grand scene. I was overwhelmed."　

I came to Taiwan, a strange country, feeling gloomy from leaving my hometown and uncertain as to whether I would survive the transplant. I never expected that this place would become like another home to me, with love all around.　

Huynh was quite worried about the treatment in Taiwan. It was a strange and foreign place, so how would he be able to overcome obstacles such as the language barrier and his livelihood? He became very anxious.

Knowing of Huynh's concerns, Lai He-xiong decided to care for him. He said, "There is a lot of pressure in taking care of a leukemia patient, but since he needed a home, I gave him one!"

Lai redecorated a room on the top floor of his house in Taipei. He tore down walls to make the room larger, created a window, put up new wallpaper and a ceiling, and thus formed an independent room for Huynh where his chances of infection would be reduced.

Lai arranged for Huynh's treatment and also provided him with nutritional food. He even took Huynh and his girlfriend on a sightseeing tour in order to reduce their anxiety before the transplant. Lai said, "I wanted them to feel at home, not like they were living in some stranger's house."

"I had lived away from my home for 12 years, but never had I received such loving care. Daddy and Mommy Lais' love was much the same as my own parents', and I always become emotional whenever I think about it," said Huynh. He was so lovingly cared for that it was only natural for him to refer to Lai as "Daddy Lai."

Huynh became the world's 931st successful bone marrow transplant patient in August 2005. A day before the transplant, Lai prayed for Huynh in his own home by chanting a Buddhist scripture. At the same time in Vietnam, volunteers, colleagues, Dr. Huynh Nghia, and Huynh's family came together to pray at a candlelight vigil.

Before the transplant, the doctor had to first extract Huynh's bone marrow to prepare for any future autologous bone marrow transplant. As Huynh lay down upon the surgical table, all kinds of thoughts flew through his head. "For a long time, I had always been the one standing by the surgical table, and it was I who had always held the patients' hands before the anesthetic took over. Now here I was, the patient on the table, and I was able to truly comprehend the enormous fear which my patients must have felt before surgery."

Huynh had already chosen to abandon his fear before the operation when he spoke with his family on a phone in an aseptic room. He remembers, "I was very fortunate. With blessings from so many, I didn't allow myself to have any feelings of weakness or cowardice."

When the donor's bone marrow flowed into his blood, Huynh felt extremely blessed. "There were medical professionals next to my bed and Tzu Chi volunteers outside in the ward giving me confidence and blessings. They enabled me to expect a new life with a bright future."　

The pain caused by the chemotherapy and the bone marrow transplant was nothing for me because I have had my prayers answered. I now have a chance to fulfill my ideal of saving more lives.　

The pain from the transplant was an unavoidable part of the process, but Huynh survived through his own strength of will. Less than six months later, the doctor told him that the new blood cells were developing well and that he could safely be discharged. This was the purest light at the end of a very dark tunnel for Huynh. "It meant that my life, my work, and even my dreams were still there and would come true!"

On February 8, 2006, Huynh finally completed all of his nine months of therapy and could at last return to his beloved home country. On his last day in Taiwan, Lai accompanied him again to the National Taiwan University Hospital for his final checkup. Under the warm sunlight, Huynh was still wrapped up tightly, but he was in fine spirits. During the half year that he had spent in Lai's company, Huynh had learned to communicate in simple Chinese.

"My teacher taught me many medical techniques, and Daddy Lai taught me an enormous amount about life." When Lai prayed to the Buddha each day, Huynh followed, and when Lai spoke about Tzu Chi volunteers, Huynh attentively listened and jotted down notes as industriously as any medical student.

Lai said, "I couldn't just let him recover from an illness without gaining something spiritually. I gave him a home and then an education on the value of life. He was a doctor and a patient. If he can help other patients in Vietnam through developing his own sense of compassion and understanding, then that would be a great achievement."

Taking care of Huynh was no easy task for Lai, who is afflicted with diabetes and hypertension. His living expenses significantly increased, and he had to provide the highest level of care for his guest after the transplant. "Leukemia is such a sensitive condition that the patient's living environment has to be close to sterile; otherwise, an infection is unavoidable."

The five years that follow a transplant are an observation period. A slightly higher than normal body temperature may indicate the presence of an infection. Lai recalled, "The doctor told us that if his temperature was over 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit), he had to be taken to the hospital. During one stormy typhoon night, his body temperature rose to 37.9 degrees Celsius, which was extremely nerve-racking for us all."

Huynh's girlfriend, a liver specialist, knew all too well how depressed Huynh had felt because of his health problems. The time she spent with him in Taiwan changed her life as well. She said, "In my job I usually spend eight hours a day seeing patients and hoping that they get well soon. But when I looked after Huynh, I had to spend 24 hours a day, and at the beginning I was very nervous. Through looking after him, I have witnessed first-hand the terrible suffering of both patients and families, and for certain this has affected my attitude in serving my patients."

When Huynh was sick, the first thing he usually did on awakening was to pinch his hand to make sure he was still alive and that he wasn't dreaming. At that time, he lived in fear that he would die from a brain hemorrhage. He would tell himself over and over that he should be satisfied to still be able to walk and do things.

He vowed that on his return to Vietnam, he would join the Tzu Chi International Medical Association and voluntarily use his skills to relieve patients from their suffering.

Huynh, who is only 28 years old, doesn't look any different from an average person. However, in his young life he has already experienced and survived a brutal test of life and death. As a result, he can now continue into his future and appreciate the value of life even more. We believe that he will build on his skills as a great doctor in Vietnam, but now with an extra emphasis on spreading compassion and love.