Giving each journalist a badge bearing the picture of her adopted Chinese daughter who is suffering from total bone marrow failure, Linda Andre-Wells kicked off her appeal to Shenzhen people to give blood for bone marrow donation Wednesday.

"The media is my friend," she said, adding that searching for matching bone marrow for needy people had become an issue bigger than her daughter, Kailee.

She said she wanted to ask Shenzhen people through the media to tell their families, friends and neighbors of the needs of many people in the world for matching bone marrow transplants. She also asked them to go to blood centers for a blood test "that can tell whether you can help those people."

"Kailee's condition is mostly stable, although her blood cell count is very low. But it is decreasing very slowly," she said of her daughter's condition. "The doctors said she was at the risk of dying at any time.

"Leaving Kailee at home is the hardest thing I've done," she said.

When she visited the bone marrow databank at the city's blood center, she asked for her picture to be taken. She said she sent her pictures back to her daughter in the United States every day. "I want her to know the first thing she wakes up every day that her mother is working for her," she said.

Wells' next stop is the cities of Changsha and Changde in Hunan Province. Changde is the city where she adopted Kailee. Even though she failed in her last visit, she wants to try again to find Kailee's biological parents there, as the chance of finding them with matching bone marrow is far greater than elsewhere.

(Shenzhen Daily November 13, 2003)