Five-year-old Vann Hale's life very much resembles one of a healthy kindergarten boy, filled with soccer, playing on the computer and riding mini-motorcycles. He even earned the nickname Vanimal for his boundless energy and humor.

But in October 1999, when Vann, then just four months old, he received a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). His initial survival rate was only about 10 percent. The most common type of acute leukemia in children, ALL is an aggressive cancer of lymphocytes that live in the bone marrow, lymph nodes and spleen. Vann was so sick that even the doctors weren't optimistic about his prognosis. "I think what kept us all going was Vann, and the fact that we had no choice in the matter," his mother Jenny Hale recalls. "Even when he had lost the skin off of his lips and face, he would still smile, just to let us know that he was still hanging in there."

At the time, Vann was receiving chemotherapy for leukemia. Unfortunately, this treatment caused him to develop a serious condition known as malabsorption, in which he was unable to digest and absorb nutrients essential to live. He lost eight pounds in just one week. He was in such a critical state that his mother decided to transfer Vann from Oakland Children's Hospital to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, as long as the doctors and nurses could assure her that she could sleep in the same bed as her son.

Then, just one day after arriving at UCSF, Jenny Hale was told that a perfect match had been found for a bone marrow transplant — a transplant that could ultimately save Vann's life.

Vann's unrelated donor, Dean, was on the transplant registry for 10 years and didn't know who his recipient was until Jenny Hale sent him letters after the procedure. Since then, Dean has been a close friend of the Hale family, keeping in regular contact with them. He even visited the Hale's home in Westport, Calif. from Toronto, Canada to celebrate Vanns second birthday. "Dean is as important to our family as Vann is. He gave my son something that even I couldn't. We are hoping to see him again soon. He is definitely a hero to many," Jenny Hale says.

Jenny Hale also credits Vann's amazing team of nurses and doctors at UCSF, especially pediatric immunologist and bone marrow transplant specialists Dr. Morton J. Cowan and Dr. Katherine Matthay and Dr. Regan Stewart, a pediatric intensive care specialist. Jenny Hale still speaks to some of them on a weekly basis.

Although Vann's bone marrow transplant was successful, he suffered a lot of bumps in the road before and after. Before undergoing his transplant, Vann spent time in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and Cancer Unit, where he received chemotherapy and radiation therapy. One year after his transplant, Vann's lungs collapsed. He developed a rare but sometimes fatal pneumonia while on therapy for graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). GvHD is a common side effect of unrelated donor bone marrow transplants in which the donor's bone marrow attacks the patient's organs and tissues, impairing their ability to function and increasing the patient's susceptibility to infection.

"I was there when we carried Vann into the operating room in order to try to identify the organism that was causing his lung disease," says Cowan, chief of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. "As I handed him to the anesthesiologist he virtually stopped breathing. If we had been one minute later, he might not have made it."

"Certain doctors and nurses were there on days when it looked like they would be Vann's last," Jenny Hale says. "And when days were long and exhausting, seemingly never-ending, all the while caring for other children whose needs were just as dire. I know that without their combined wisdom and ultimate love for their patients, Vann's life would all together be different."

Even after all of the heartache and sickness that Vann faced, Jenny Hale says she wouldn't change a thing. It deepened her relationship with her son and appreciation for life, teaching her that nothing is certain, everything is in the now and could all be gone tomorrow.

"So we made it another year and proved everyone wrong. But this journey has been full of blessings, and I wouldn't have given them up for anything," Vann's mother says. "And next year, it will be another day I remember the other parents that gave me sanity, even in their own time of heartache, and the doctors and nurses that gave my son life, and I'll thank them."

Cowan says that Vann is an inspiration to all of the doctors and nurses and keeps them going when confronted with what appear to be overwhelming odds. "The odds were definitely against Vann but with the help of a whole lot of people including Jenny and her mom, Vann is doing well," says Cowan. "He is a very happy little guy."

Story written in February 2005.

Abby Sinnott is a San Francisco-based freelance writer.