It was just after Christmas 2003 when six-year-old Chinese girl Kailee Wells looked up at her adoptive mother Linda and said: ?Mummy, I am going to miss you when I die?.

They were words no mother would want to contemplate. Linda felt like crying, but held back her tears to reply: ?Sweetheart, mummies usually die before their little girls.?

She knew, however, there was a very strong possibility Kailee would die before her. She had been diagnosed with severe aplastic anaemia when she was five, and on many occasions doctors had told the couple their daughter had only days or weeks of life left. But they never gave up hope. ?We always believed we were going to keep our girl and we had to keep fighting for her. If she was going to make it through then by God we were going to save her,? her father Owen Wells said.

Their journey took them from New Mexico, across the world to Asia, where the plight of Kailee touched the hearts of thousands of people. And this Christmas, what seemed an impossible dream has been realised after a Chinese donor who heard of her plight stepped forward and provided the marrow that has given her the gift of life. Wang Lin, a 28-year-old doctor from the eastern city of Hangzhou, had heard about Kailee and offered to become a donor. He was that one man in 10 million who could save her life. Kailee underwent a successful transplant in November 2005 with the bone marrow donated by Wang. She had a second transplant from him earlier this year to solve a few problems and is now well and happy. Kailee presented a tearful Wang with a picture frame inscribed with the words: ?You are my hero. I will love you forever?. In response, Wang swept her up in a big hug.

?It was an honour to meet him,? Wells said. ?He is a very compassionate and gentle person. We call him our ?special daddy? and hope we can keep in touch with him and share our lives with him as Kailee gets older.?