In September, Alan J. Kuo '85, who suffered from chronic myelogenous leukemia, was told by his doctors that unless he found a bone marrow donor, he had only one month to live.

But despite the medical odds, Kuo has survived. Aided by bone marrow drives across the country, including one at Harvard Sept. 23 and 24, Kuo found a compatible donor and underwent a successful transplant operation.

On Monday, he left the Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to return to his nearby home.

In a telephone interview yesterday from Seattle, Kuo's voice was clear and steady as he described the wonders of being out of the hospital for the first time in months.

"It feels strange," Kuo said. "I took a walk today around the block [of my family's apartment building]. It's tough on the legs.... I have to be careful."

But before returning to his life in San Francisco, Kuo must stay at home on out-patient basis for two months.

Though he is still on 10 different immuno-suppressant drugs, he is cautiously optimistic, talking of his desire to travel and resume a normal relationship with his girl-friend.

"I don't think I've ever not been optimistic," Kuo said.

When Kuo was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in 1995, his being able to talk of the future seemed chimeric.

But the search for a bone marrow donor was complicated by the fact that Kuo's bone marrow type included a rare antigen found with some frequency only among other Asians.

Carol Gillespie, project administrator of the Asian-American Donor Program said that of the 3,035,893 donors listed in the National Bone Marrow Registry, only 173,183 are Asian donors.

Gillespie said that nationally there is a total of 30,000 diagnoses of leukemia every year. But in its 12-year history, the Asian American Donor Program (AADP) has counted only 136 Asians who were able to find a compatible donor and undergo a transplant.

"It's really really hard to quote the numbers. Some have died waiting for a transplant, some are no longer eligible for a transplant because their condition is so advanced and some refuse to undergo so much pain" Gillespie said.

"I think it's amazing that [Kuo's] alive today," she added.

After fruitlessly searching for a donor, Kuo agreed to publicize his story last July. In doing so, Kuo became a cause clbre.

Gillespie said that Kuo was interviewed by radio and television stations. His friends and family distributed enormous numbers of flyers, e-mails, posters and set up a Web page.

"He was everywhere," Gillespie said. She added that AADP's annual recruitment increased by 2,000 donors last year, most likely due to the publicity surrounding Kuo's search. The AADP recruits 8,000 to 10,000 donors annually, she said.