"As families gathered at Miami Children's Hospital, Carlos Boozer knew what it meant for so many.

"Whatever kid was in that room," Boozer said, "didn't have many days left."

Boozer's 15-month-old son, Carmani, was just a few doors away, suffering from sickle-cell anemia.

It's an inherited disease, one that causes a lack of healthy red blood cells. Instead, the misshapen cells — crescent moons, as the Mayo Clinic describes them — can't carry oxygen to the body as they should because they can get stuck and block blood flow.

Living with the disease, Carmani would feel shooting pains throughout his body, a toddler short of breath and at jeopardy of stroke.

A stem cell transplant could take care of the anemia. But the procedure could kill Carmani.

Carlos and Cece — Carmani's mother and Boozer's wife at the time — decided umbilical cord blood would be transplanted into Carmani's bone marrow. The frozen cells came from Cameron, one of Boozer's twin boys born just a short time before.

That was four years ago."