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Initial diagnosis
On that cold winter day, when 41-year-old Cai Lei walked out of the hospital, the sun was still extraordinarily bright, but it did not shine into his gloomy heart at all. As the vice president of Jingdong Group, with rich material and excellent status, Cai Lei originally had a happy life.
On this day, he received the most brutal diagnosis of his life - he was diagnosed with ALS.
This terrible disease, which is incurable and has a very short life expectancy, instantly deprives this once prosperous business elite of all expectations for the future. When the young and promising Cai Lei was still the one who disliked the elevator running too slowly and chose to take the stairs directly, now he had to wait helplessly, waiting for the last elevator to slowly send him into a hopeless desperate situation.
The sudden upheaval made Cai Lei full of fear for the future. He has just gotten married, and he has a young child to raise, will his wife be suspicious of himself because of this? How to explain this cruel truth to the person who is about to become his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Cai Lei feels helpless and confused.
As the writer Wang Xiaobo said, "Life is a process of slowly being hammered", this heavy storm is slamming heavily on Cai Lei's shoulders and forcing him into a desperate situation.
Faced with such an incredible blow, Cai Lei's mood fell to the freezing point. But he did not choose to be decadent, on the contrary, deep down he understood that no matter when and where he was, he will always have the freedom to choose his own behavior and attitude and lifestyle, which is the basic right of human nature that will never die.
Cai Lei is determined to use this perseverance and courage to deal with the next journey of life.
Career peaks
In May 1978, Cai Lei was born in a poor but tough military family. Since childhood, he has endured the hardships of life, but he has never given up on learning and enterprising.
In that highly competitive college entrance examination province, the underage Cai Lei was able to get up at four o'clock in the morning to study knowledge and learn foreign languages, and finally was admitted to a prestigious school with excellent results, showing extraordinary talent and perseverance.
This "genius boy" is also smooth sailing in his career development. After graduating, he joined Samsung China Headquarters and JD.com Group, where he was quickly promoted from tax manager to chief tax accountant and eventually vice president of JD.com.
During this period, he created the first brilliant record of electronic invoices in China, which is impressive.
But Cai Lei understands that even if he has gotten rid of the fate of "children without umbrellas", he still needs to continue to fight. It is this perseverance and courage that has enabled him to achieve remarkable achievements in the highly competitive business society and become the envy of the business elite.
Fate gave Cai Lei a heavy blow in 2018. From the frequent flesh jumping phenomenon, to repeated medical treatment to no avail, and finally diagnosed with incurable ALS, this bad news made Cai Lei's mood fall to the freezing point.
But even in the face of great challenges in his life, he still did not choose to be decadent, but determined to find a solution to this sudden adversity.
During his observation at the hospital, Cai Lei deeply felt the difficulties faced by ALS patients and their families—high medical costs, lack of effective treatment, and helpless psychological state.
These sincere stories can't help but ignite a strong impulse in Cai Lei's heart, and he is determined to bring change to these patients.
Cai Lei quickly found Professor Fan Dongsheng, a top ALS expert in China, and learned about the bottleneck of ALS research in mainland China - the scarcity of patient samples and the barrier to information exchange between hospitals.
This passage inspired Cai Lei, and he decided to use his experience in the Internet industry to start building a data platform specifically for ALS patients.
In just two years, Cai Lei has successfully established the world's largest "folk ALS patient data platform", which has collected information on more than 10,000 patients. This has dramatically accelerated the research and development process of scientists, reducing the development cycle from 15 years to 5 years.
At the same time, Cai Lei did not hesitate to sell his stocks and real estate and devote himself to this great cause.
In order to further promote the research and development of therapeutic drugs, Cai Lei took the initiative to visit and encourage those patients who were suffering. He solemnly promised to work with the medical team until his last breath was exhausted, vowing to develop effective anti-drugs for them.
With his arrival, the originally desperate patients began to rekindle their hope for life, and Cai Lei was like a ray of dawn shining into the darkness, making their hearts swell with infinite waves.
Through Cai Lei's unremitting efforts, ALS patients finally saw the light of day. They firmly asked to meet Cai Lei, hoping to gain courage and strength from this hero in the heart of the patient, and regain hope for life.
Although the patient's body was still tightly bound by the disease, their souls were reinvigorated by Cai Lei's arrival, and they began to regain their appetite, waiting for the future with infinite anticipation.
As the famous writer Roland said, "Every human heart should have two lights------ the light of hope and the light of courage." With these two lights together, we are no longer afraid of the darkness and waves in life.
At this moment, Cai Lei is a bright light shining into the darkness in the hearts of patients, lighting up their desire and belief in life.
Difficulties and doubts
Cai Lei's deeds have not been widely recognized as he had hoped. As his deeds gradually spread, doubts intensified, and some people even thought that he was just "putting on a show".
Some patients even suspected that the purpose of setting up the data platform was to make commercial profits, and expelled him from the patient group.
In this regard, Cai Lei showed a strong psychological quality and firm belief. In the face of overwhelming accusations and criticism, he still did not flinch and insisted on his beliefs.
But his team members chose to leave one by one because they couldn't see hope, which made Cai Lei face an unprecedented predicament.
At this time, someone once told Cai Lei bluntly: "At this stage, there is no cure for icing disease, and we don't want to waste our youth here." This sentence hits the nail on the head of reality – losing the conviction to hold fast to one's faith is the biggest threat.
Cai Lei knows this, so he must seize every minute and every second to advance his research. He led the remaining team members to go through a staggering 30,000 pieces of academic literature, asking each person to read more than 100 articles a day.
Even after being infected with the new coronavirus, his body temperature was dangerously high, but he still insisted on fighting on the front line of scientific research and did not relax at all.
At the same time, in order to save more ALS patients, Cai Lei actively carried out roadshows across the country and launched the "Second Ice Bucket" challenge to call for social attention.
The actual difficulties were far beyond his imagination, the actual effect of fundraising was not ideal, and the actual aid funds received were extremely limited.
In the face of many obstacles, Cai Lei did not give up, but comforted himself more optimistically: "Even if all the efforts come to naught in the end, as long as you can move forward even if it is only a short 10 or 20 years, it will be worth it."
He firmly believes that as long as he can persevere to the end, he will be able to break through the existing predicament and bring hope to ALS patients.
Dedication
In the long and difficult research and development process, Cai Lei has experienced more than 30 failures, and the start-up scientific research line is as long as more than 80, and finally only 10 have successfully entered clinical trials.
This is undoubtedly a road full of thorns, and many people think that Cai Lei is like a real-life version of "Don Quixote", obsessed with unattainable dreams.
But what Cai Lei yearns for in his heart is the image of Sun Wukong who went through hardships and finally grew into a fighting Buddha. Even though his arms have lost their function, he still stubbornly steps on the mouse with his feet and continues to devote himself to the cause of healing and saving people.
Duan Rui, his wife on the side, has long admired Cai Lei's tenacity and dedication. She looked at her husband, who had only been weak in his left arm, but now he had completely lost the function of both arms and could only operate with the help of a mouse.
But Cai Lei still showed a firm belief: "Even if there is only one breath left, I will stick to it to the end."
This determination and dedication touched those present. As night fell, we lit a congratulatory candle for him, hoping that the widespread use of inflammatory protein inhibitors would become a reality as soon as possible, and that patients would no longer suffer from ALS.
In order to raise more funds to support scientific research, Mr. Cai Lei and his wife Duan Rui bravely joined the ranks of live streaming. They sell high-quality and affordable goods in the "Icebreaker Station", which attracts the attention of many people.
But these meager benefits are just a drop in the bucket for the entire R&D process.
In the 45th year of his life, Duan Rui faced a full live audience alone, thanking everyone for their sincere support. Cai Lei and his wife said emotionally when they connected: "No matter this year or next year, as long as time does not stop, we will look forward to seeing each other again, and the spring scenery is like people's smiling faces."
"This cherishing of life and dedication to the cause is infecting everyone.
Influence and inspiration
It is this belief that has made Cai Lei a hero in the hearts of ALS patients. He used his own experience to explain to the world how the change of attitude towards life can bring about a turn of fate.
Most of the so-called predicaments will gradually dissipate in the process of our daily struggle. With enough courage, anyone can cross the limits of life.
As the famous writer Lu Yao said, "Life never makes everyone feel perfect, but we must love and face each day positively." Time flies, time flies, but as long as Cai Lei continues to stubbornly swim against the current, he will be able to break through the shackles of fate and achieve the highest value of life.
His deeds will surely become a mirror of society, reflecting the inner strength and courage of each of us. Even in the most difficult circumstances, as long as we hold fast to our faith and work tirelessly, we will be able to overcome the darkness and welcome the light.
Cai Lei's story will surely inspire more people to be proud of it and move forward bravely.