Batman, an unbreakable bond & Alex's Lemonade Stand: How Diego Vega fought cancer
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Not every child with cancer is close to a hospital that has the treatment they need. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation's Travel for Care program helps families get to where they need to be.
In 15-year-old Diego Vega's case, the foundation also helped his treatment get to him.
Diego was in the hospital fighting cancer nearly two years ago. It was taking a toll on him physically, yet he remained mentally strong by finding therapy through writing.
"On a cold rainy night in Gotham, Batman is on top of a building, crouching, when all you could see is the shadow in his white eyes."
That's the beginning of a 152-scene comic book Diego spent months writing.
"I love writing," Diego said.
"It's something that took him completely out of reality," Alma Yasinovsky said.
At the time, his reality was more like a nightmare.
In March 2021, Diego noticed he wasn't feeling well.
"Super tired, super pale," Diego said. "I had little red dots on my legs."
After a blood test, doctors diagnosed Diego with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive cancer that was attacking the majority of his bone marrow.
"He started crying," Yasinovsky said. "For me, it was more, OK, what's next? What are we going to do? When do we start?"
The family lives in Las Vegas where Yasinovsky says chemotherapy is the only treatment available to children with cancer.
That year Diego underwent five intensive rounds of chemo. All unsuccessful.
"You start losing your hair, started losing weight," Yasinovsky said, "There were some days he was very, very sick."
"Sometimes, I just felt like I wanted to die," Diego said. "Leave me at home for my final days. Sometimes I couldn't even get up from the bed. It was very hard to move. The side effects were terrible, horrible."
Diego's only shot at survival was a bone marrow transplant. Sanding in the way of that were two financial roadblocks
The procedure needed to be done in California and the only perfect match for Diego happened to be in Puerto Rico. It was his 6-year-old half-brother Jose who they'd never met.
"We needed to bring that kid back to California," Yasinovsky said. "The tickets were $6,000."
That's where Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation came to the rescue, paying for Diego's family to temporarily relocate to Los Angeles and for Jose's roundtrip from Puerto Rico.
"It was incredible because within the same day," Yasinovsky said, "they responded to us."
Today, Diego has plenty to smile about. The bone marrow transplant was successful. His cancer is in remission. He's built an unbreakable bond with his half-brother.
And the hope to one day meet the heroes who made it all possible, directors of ALSF, Liz and Jay Scott, Alex Scott's parents.
"We need to meet these people and thank them," Diego said. "The things they have done for us we can never pay them back."