Three patients, three stories

'Isn't it a mercy?'

Nosebleeds hit Zhao Weijia regularly when he was 5. A year later, he was diagnosed at Beijing Children's Hospital with Gaucher disease, a genetic disorder that allows too much glucocerebroside, a fatty substance, to accumulate. It leads to organ enlargement and bone pain and, without treatment, is life-threatening.

Zhao is 15 now and attends Kangzhuang Middle School, a boarding school for about 95 percent of students. But Zhao lives at home with his father and grandmother because "he suffers convulsions sometimes at night and might scare other children", said grandmother Guo Fengzhi, 71.