GULF SHORES, Ala. — Logan and Christy Whitehead are avid supporters and participants in Relay For Life on the Alabama Gulf Coast. They believe the funds raised by the event had a part in saving Logan’s life.

Logan looks and acts like a typical 13-year-old boy. He likes to play soccer and is an expert gamer on his Nintendo DS. His freckled face with a ruddy complexion is framed by thick brown hair with a reddish tint.

However, just one year ago, Logan was fighting for his life at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.

On Sept. 28, 2007, Logan, then a student at Gulf Shores Elementary School, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, commonly known as AML.

Logan’s mom, Christy Whitehead, said she had taken Logan to the doctor on several occasions for unusual bruising and styes in his eyes, but always had a gnawing feeling something was not right with her son. When Dr. Charlene Hoffman told her the diagnosis, she hardly heard it.

“I never even heard her say leukemia,” Christy Whitehead said. “When she said, ‘white blood cell count,’ I never heard anything after that.”

According to the National Marrow Donor Program Web site, marrow.org, AML is a fast growing acute leukemia, and treatment is started immediately.

After a short stop at South Baldwin Regional Medical Center to stabilize him with fluids, Logan was transported to Children’s Hospital, where he and his mother lived for the next eight months.

Logan underwent cutting edge chemotherapy treatments at the hospital and, according to his mother, was only allowed to leave the hospital “for two or three days at a time” until May 2008.

“We were at the hospital for 47 straight days before they let us come home,” Christy Whitehead said. “We went home for two days and had to come right back because of his blood count.”

From September 2007 until May 2008, time away from the hospital was precious and few for the Whiteheads.

Christy Whitehead took a leave of absence from her job as a teacher at Gulf Shores Elementary to remain with Logan.

“We could only go home six or seven times for the weekend,” she said.

One of the weekends they came home was for the 2008 Relay For Life event held at the Orange Beach Sportsplex.

“I was running around taking care of all sorts of things the night of Relay,” event chairman Jeanne Fitzgibbons said. “I began to hear cheering from the Gulf Shores Elementary School campsite. The cheering began to get louder as more sites began to cheer. I went over there and saw Logan with a big smile from ear to ear as he was surrounded by his teachers and fellow students.”

Christy Whitehead said she had always been a supporter and participant in Relay For Life events, but this year Relay has become even more special to her.

“Without the funds for research generated by the Cancer Society, Logan may not have been with me today,” she said.

Fitzgibbons said with the economic crunch the area and the country is experiencing now, every penny is crucial in the fight against cancer.

“We're going to have to work twice as hard to raise money this year. I’d like to encourage anyone who would like to lend a hand at the event or would like to donate or raise money to contact me,” she said. “You don’t have to have a team to help support the cause.”

Fitzgibbons can be reached at 981-1524 or jfitz@cityoforangebeach.com.

This year’s Relay For Life Alabama Gulf Coast will once again be held at the Orange Beach Sportsplex on April 24.

Logan said he will be a participant this year, and takes his battle with cancer in stride.

“If I hadn’t had cancer, I wouldn’t have met a lot of famous people like Nick Saban, and I wouldn’t have met a lot of my new friends,” he said. “It also gave me a new motto to live by — every day is a gift.”

It’s a gift he seems to be living to its fullest.