A year ago my husband received a call from his doctor telling him he had leukemia. In that moment, we were immediately thrown into what I lovingly refer to as a tornado of emotions and events beyond our control or comprehension. Each time we learned more about his condition the news seemed less and less hopeful. But then, one by one, small miracles seemed to appear opening the doorway of opportunity for his treatments.

When we received the call from his doctors on Thursday, January 4th 2007, Erik had already been feeling sick for seven or eight months. Although we had been to many doctors and he had undergone multiple tests, each one had come back negative. When we got off the phone I was in shock. I didn't know how to process the information. Since each previous test had come back negative it was easy to assume that this one would too.

By Saturday, just two days after we learned of his diagnosis, Erik was checked into the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center to begin chemotherapy. As that first week went by and more test results came back, we learned a lot about Erik's illness. Unfortunately, the news wasn't good. Erik had Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) an aggressive cancer that rendered Erik's bone marrow incapable of producing healthy white blood cells that each person needs in order to fight off infection. Instead, Erik's bone marrow was producing cancerous cells that were completely ineffective and that threatened the few healthy cells that Erik had left. In order to save Erik, the doctors first had to kill off the cancerous cells using chemotherapy. Once the cancer cells were reduced, Erik would have to undergo a bone marrow transplant to replace his cancerous bone marrow cells with healthy new cells.

Before the transplant could take place we needed to find a donor for Erik. In order for the transplant to work properly the donor had to be a perfect match with Erik so that his body would accept the new cells. The doctors first choice was Erik's only sister Heather. They warned us though that many times, even in a family with five or six siblings, no match is found. If Heather wasn't a match for Erik we would have to turn to the National Donor Registry a process that could take months to find a match, time we didn't have.

After six weeks in the hospital and one round of chemotherapy we returned to the oncologist for a biopsy. Unfortunately, the results that came back weren't good. The chemo had failed to kill off enough of the Leukemia, so Erik was sent back to the hospital for another round. This second round of chemo needed work properly because Erik would need to be in a kind of "remission" in order to be a good candidate for the bone marrow transplant. This is because, when the number of cancerous cells go up, the odds of a successful transplant go down. Also, our insurance wouldn't cover the transplant if Erik's Leukemia count was too high. Unfortunately though, when Erik came home from his second round of chemo, we learned that it still didn't do the job. Since two very intense rounds of chemotherapy hadn't been able to kill off the cancerous cells, the doctors were worried that Erik might have a "super" leukemia that nothing could kill.

When he first learned that he would need a transplant, Erik shared all of the information with his sister Heather. She is honestly the nicest person I know. In her view, she had to try to be a bone marrow donor for her brother. I don't even think she gave it a pause or a second thought.

When Heather was tested we were all very nervous. However, the results were very positive. Heather really was a perfect match! After all the bad news, we were so relieved to finally hear something positive and Erik was happy that his one and only sister would have the opportunity to save his life.

Since Erik's cancerous cells weren't responding properly to the chemotherapy we didn't have very many choices. As a last resort, Erik had the option of undergoing a bone marrow transplant combined with full body irradiation and two more chemo cycles. Although it would be risky and painful, Erik decided to go for it. Since our insurance wouldn't cover the transplant, we quickly started fundraising. We were amazed as our community came together to support us and many of our friends and neighbors donated to the cause.

On Monday April 9th, roughly three months after Erik was diagnosed, he started the transplant process. After several days of total body irradiation - to kill off the remaining leukemia, Erik began to receive Heather's stem cells. It was a simple procedure where Heather's cells were taken from her blood stream, put in an IV bag and given to Erik. The hope was that the new healthy cells would kill off the bad ones and also begin producing new white blood cells to help Erik fight off diseases. However, because Erik's leukemia count was still so high the chance of the transplant working successfully was only 10 to 20 percent. Not very good odds considering that there was no other alternative treatment. For this reason, we were all relying heavily on a miracle.

For the next few weeks after the transplant, Erik's doctors monitored his cell count closely. Amazingly the number of good cells in Erik's body continued to go up and up. By the end of May Erik was able to leave the hospital and on August 1st we received the wonderful news that Erik was in complete remission! All of the cancerous cells had been killed off by Heather's healthy cells and Erik was cancer free. We were beyond happy and excited! It had been a long road since we first heard of Erik's diagnosis back in January but through the entire process we were helped and supported by so many in our community. When we first heard the great news our first thoughts were ones of thankfulness as we realized how much we had been blessed. We were especially thankful for Heather and her willingness to help save Erik's life.

To me it seems there was no way I could repay her or even thank her enough for saving my husband. So as Christmas approached I spent a lot of time thinking about the perfect gift for Heather. Finally, I decided to make a book. I wanted it to be one that could be read within our families for a long time so that everyone could know and remember her and what she did for us. I wanted it to be like a children's book almost - simple and easy to read and almost fairytale like.

My book turned out perfectly and when I presented it to Heather, Erik, and our parents on Christmas morning I hoped that it expressed my thanks to her. Erik's father cried when he read it and Heather and he husband thanked me again and again. I am so happy that our children and grandchildren will be able to read the story and remember what the great gift Heather gave to our family.