A 12-year-old girl forces herself to eat 3 kg of noodles every day, so she can gain enough weight to donate bone marrow to her younger brother, People's Daily reported.

In 2017, Zhang Xinxin's brother Zhang Haizhen was diagnosed with Albers Schonberg disease. The bone disease can only be cured by the patient receiving a hemopoietic stem cell transplant.

After hearing this, Zhang Xinxin asked the doctor to test her blood and found she is a match for her brother. But the 160 cm-tall girl weighed only 40 kg. The doctor said she needs to weigh at least 50 kg before she can donate.

So the girl began to gain weight, forcing herself to eat three big bowls of noodles each day. The noodles contain water, salt and several pieces of vegetables.

Two years of medical treatment has left the family from Henan in poverty. The parents quit their jobs to take care of their son, and the children’s father works some part-time jobs near the hospital to make a little money.

To help her parents, Zhang Xinxin gets up at 5 am every day and climbs a mountain 3 km away to pick hazelnuts and sell them.

Zhang Haizhen will be ready for a transplant soon, but the family is still far from raising the 430,000 yuan ($61,370) required to pay for the operation.