Some people take their lives for granted, but for 3-year-old Eric Besonen every day that he lives is a gift.

Eric, son of NIU data processing analyst Robert Besonen, was diagnosed with leukemia in May.

ight now, Eric is in remission due to chemotherapy, but he is

in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, his father said.

“It is critical for Eric to find a donor while he is in his first remission,” Robert Besonen said.

“Eric has what is known as the Philadelphia chromosome which prevents chemotherapy from working in the long run.”

Currently, Eric’s doctors are searching for a bone marrow donor. Since Eric is caucasian, the chances of finding a donor are about 1 in 20,000 because the donor must be of like race.

On the other hand, minorities have little chance of finding a donor.

Eric’s parents are working on this problem by trying to get a minority donor drive set up at NIU.

NIU is beneficial for a minority donor drive because it has lots of minorities on campus and the minorities are relatively young, said Robert Besonen. Younger people also work out better as donors, he added.

Besides finding a donor Eric’s parents need help financially because of the enormous hospital bills.

NIU student Steve Kimmel had Eric as a student in Campus Child Care and when he heard of Eric’s illness he decided to help.

“Eric is a neat kid … that’s really what motivated us to act,” Kimmel said.

A fund was set up in DeKalb for interested people to send donations to First National Bank of DeKalb.

“We’ve had money constantly coming in a steady flow,” Kimmel said, adding there are canisters set up for donations outside Wal-Mart, Jewel, A Kut Above, Junction Bookstore and Glidden Florist.

Kimmel also is having coupons made for people to receive 5 percent off Oct. 7 to 9 at Osco or Jewel in DeKalb. The stores will donate the 5 percent to Eric’s fund.

“The coupons are free, it doesn’t cost anybody anything to use them,” Kimmel said.

Make-a-Wish Foundation also helped out by granting Eric his wish to go to Disneyland.

“The help and support is just fantastic,” Besonen said. “We didn’t ask anyone to help … they just did.”

“It makes you appreciate what you have and it makes you realize that there is a lot of people in this world that need help,” he said.

“You don’t really notice that until it affects you.”