Scrappy Attitude Helps Teen Athlete Overcome Leukemia

Ramon Hilliard recalls the day nearly two years ago when his life changed.

A high school freshman and football player, he began feeling exhausted, no matter how much rest he got. He lost his appetite and kept getting weaker. Eventually, doctors diagnosed an aggressive form of leukemia and said the only thing that would save him was a bone marrow transplant.

With the same scrappy attitude that had helped him bull over prep players as a freshman on the Northwestern High School junior varsity football team, Ramon, 15, of Hyattsville, began battling the deadly disease. Now, thanks to a successful bone marrow transplant last year, he is looking forward to returning to school and football this fall.

For his courage, Ramon was honored this month as Patient Hero of the Year at the Bobby Mitchell/Toyota Hall of Fame Golf Classic at Lansdowne Resort in Virginia, an annual event that has raised millions of dollars for leukemia research.

"I didn't want anybody babying me," Ramon said of his attitude throughout the ordeal.

Ramon, who is African American, realizes just how fortunate he was to find a match. Because tissue types are inherited, patients are most likely to find a bone marrow match within their racial or ethnic groups. African Americans make up less than 10 percent of the potential donors registered with the National Marrow Donor Program and are the least likely of all racial groups to find at least one potential match on the registry, a spokeswoman for the program said.

Denae Hilliard, Ramon's mother, set out to try to change those statistics and help her son at the same time. She helped create a Web site to enlist donors and had more than two dozen bone marrow drives in the past year.

"What started off as one of the most devastating periods of my life has turned out to be an amazing experience," she said. "Because of my faith in God, which was 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I knew that we would overcome this."

Ramon's story came to the attention of the golf tournament organizers, who work with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Bobby Mitchell, 73, the first African American to play for the Washington Redskins and a Hall of Famer who started the event 17 years ago, said a person under 20 who has leukemia is honored at the tournament each year.

"Ramon means a lot to us," Mitchell said. "It's special this year because he is an athlete."

Mitchell said the golf tournament is a tribute to Ernie Davis, the first African American Heisman Trophy winner, who was drafted by the Washington Redskins but died of leukemia before he could play in a game.

Ramon's battle with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma began in November 2005.

"I had to have emergency chemo right away because I was really sick," Ramon said.

Denae Hilliard said she felt like her world was coming to an end. But she enlisted an army of supporters that included coaches and members of the football team and officials from the National Marrow Donor Program. And she got busy, helping to sign up potential donors.

In March 2006, the head coach and members of the Northwestern football team had a rally on the sidewalk of Verizon Center to sign up donors in hopes of finding a match for Ramon. At Children's Hospital, Ramon was so weak he could barely talk.

Two months later, Ramon's condition grew critical when he contracted pneumonia.

"I kept thinking about coming back to school and playing football," Ramon said, describing what helped him through an often lonely battle at Children's. "When I went critical, it was only for three days. I wasn't worried because God had my back."

His outlook changed dramatically when a matching donor was identified. Ramon underwent the transplant last July, but he spent a month in isolation at the hospital and three months of isolation at home.

"I couldn't be near any of my sisters," Ramon said. "I was basically stuck in a room, wiping down everything because I needed to be away from the germs."

During this time, though, Ramon was home-schooled and managed to complete 10th grade with all A's and B's.

A few weeks ago, he was back on the sidelines when Northwestern played DeMatha High School in a touch football game, part of a spring league that helps the young athletes stay in shape. Ramon didn't get to play, but he is confident he will be ready in the fall.

"I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me," he said.

And maybe, he said, he'll even be able to pass along some pointers to his teammates from some of the Hall of Famers who played in the golf tournament.

"I want to go back and show off what I learned," Ramon said. "I am going to be a Hall of Famer one day."