A decade ago when she was just 19, Feng Jiamei had the world at her feet.
She travelled 250 kilometers from her hometown in Sichuan to its capital Chengdu for a TV talent show called "Super Girls" .
She came fourth, but with her good looks and singing talent, celebrity followed.
She released three singles and starred in a few movies.
However, with opportunities to release an album and sign a contract with a movie studio, her destiny suddenly took a tragic - but ultimately more fulfilling - course.
A short-lived dream
On April 24, 2015, Feng put a post on her Weibo microblog and her 200,000 followers learned how her beloved daughter, Meier, had died of the rare genetic condition spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) the year before.
The post went viral in 24 hours.
"I spent one and a half years walking through her death and wondering how to tell the public," Feng recalls through tears.
"I was so desperate to find a partner and have a child," Feng says.
She daydreamed about buying clothes and dressing her daughter when she was pregnant at 25.
When her baby was born, Feng felt as if all her dreams were fulfilled. But the joy of raising her "little angel" was short-lived. At just 4 months, Meier was unable to hold up her head, roll over or sit up without assistance.
"We took her to hospital and she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy," recalls Feng. But the symptoms did not match the diagnosis. A local hospital in Chengdu made another misdiagnosis that resulted in painful physiotherapy, including limb-stretching and electric shock treatments, for more than half a year.
Eventually a blood test report from Beijing confirmed Meier' s condition as SMA.
SMA affects the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement. It has wide variability in age of onset, symptoms and rate of progression. Feng later learned that the earlier the age of onset, the greater the impact on motor function. Children like Meier, who display symptoms at birth or in infancy, typically have the lowest level of functioning and they rarely live to 2 years.
In 2013, Feng flitted between Chengdu, Beijing and Hong Kong to seek medical help. Not a single doctor prescribed one pill - they just advised her to take care of her daughter. "I felt so hopeless for my angel," says Feng.
Eventually, Meier was hospitalized as a result of respiratory failure and her family took turns to watch her around the clock.
Feng went into denial over Meier' s death: "I could only think that I should wait - maybe next year there would be a life-saving medicine and she would fully recover. We could visit relatives and friends again."
Then her marriage ended too.
