Source: Sourthern Metropolis Daily 2013-03-07 Page GA15

Written by: Liu Lixia, Feng Huping

Translated by: Wang Yifei

Southern Metropolis Daily news “Help Lingling! She is terribly ill. Please help her!” Yesterday, a help-seeking miniblog which calls for a whip-round touched the hearts of many Sun Yat-sen University students. Zhong Yuling, a 25-year-old postgraduate student in the Department of Anthropology of SYSU, has to pay high medical bills for myasthenia gravis. Her mother was so desperate that she wrote a letter asking for help. After knowing her family’s difficulties, Zhong Yuling’s classmates called for emergency help on Weibo.

Yesterday, 30 students set up stalls in front of three main canteens on South Campus to raise fund for Zhong Yuling. According to the students, Zhong Yuling’s parents divorced when she was young and her mother made a living as an hourly worker. What make the students admire Zhong Yuling is that she was admitted by the Graduate School of Sun Yat-sen University twice! In 2010, Zhong Yuling gave up her chance of graduate education because she didn’t want to add burdens to her mother. It is in the same year that she was diagnosed as a myasthenia gravis (type IV) patient. Thanks to the timely treatment, her condition was controlled. In 2012, Zhong Yuling was enrolled in the postgraduate program in SYSU again. Unfortunately, her illness recurred and worsened in 2013. On January 14, Zhong Yuling had thymectomy in The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. However, the condition was not under control, and now she has been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Liu Ruixing, Zhong Yuling’s mother, told the journalists from Southern Metropolis Daily that now Yuling relies on breathing machine everyday and the current treatment fee costs over 2,000 yuan per day. Since she knew the illness of her daughter, she has spent 120,000 yuan on the medical expense.

According to the student who is in charge of the whip-round, the circumstance of Yuling touched the hearts of SYSU students. Her classmates raised 5,500 yuan for her last Wednesday and the amount of money raised in front of the canteens had reached 22,400 yuan by last night. However, donations on one campus alone are not enough and he calls for more people in the society to extend their helping hands to Yuling.

The journalists have learnt that, myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune disease. It is a difficult disease with a long course, so it is even called “the second cancer”.