In 1982, Dadi was living in Shanghai and needed kidney treatment she could not obtain there. Her family sought help bringing her to the United States.

Dadi’s brother, Dahai, was studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He told an English professor about his sister’s illness, and that conversation eventually connected the family with Susan, then a young nephrologist at Tufts.

The family and the professor organized a fundraising campaign to cover the cost of a transplant. An airline helped with the cost of Dadi’s flight. That campaign began the work that would later become the Daniels Hamant Foundation.

Dadi’s first transplant failed after a week, and she returned to dialysis. Over the next seven years, she trained as a nephrology nurse, married, and waited for another transplant. A second transplant in 1989 also failed.

Dadi has lived on dialysis for decades. She is a godmother to Susan’s children, and her relationship with the family has continued long beyond that first fundraising campaign.