Before that procedure was performed at the Fairview University Medical Center in Minneapolis, Drew endured treatments at Stanford Hospital and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The 37-year-old Los Gatos native has been close to death numerous times.

And if that wasn't enough, a Seattle hospital worker was recently convicted of violating patient privacy laws by opening credit card accounts in Drew's name and using them to purchase luxury items.

So if anyone ever has the right to complain, it's Drew.

Though he is outwardly angry about what happened in Seattle, he still doesn't gripe. He says he's simply appreciative that he's still here.

"Every two weeks, people look at me and go, 'Wow, you look like a different person,' " Drew says over a drink at the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company. "I've been through four leukemia treatments. I was very, very lucky to survive even one of them."

Whether by coincidence or fate, Drew's cancer was discovered when he was donating platelets--small blood cells that control bleeding--for children with leukemia. He had done this for about 10 years.

The donation center realized he might have leukemia, and a physician's blood test confirmed it several days later. Drew was immediately sent to Stanford, where he underwent 10 months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. During that time, he started the Eric Drew Leukemia Foundation and received an outpouring of donations from the Los Gatos community. He also organized a bone-marrow donor registration drive in 2003 that was attended by nearly 1,000 people.

Unfortunately, though, the treatments at Stanford didn't work. His leukemia had returned, so he headed to Seattle in September of that year for more radiation and chemotherapy, as well as a new treatment.

"Seattle [doctors] basically did an experimental half-match transplant, a bone-marrow transplant with a half-sister I had only met a few months before," Drew says. "And she happened to work at the transplant center. It was like it was meant to be."

Drew thought the treatment would be the only hardship he faced in Washington, but he ended up facing another fight.

"About a week to 10 days after I got to Seattle, I started getting notices from banks and creditors thanking me for applications that I had never submitted," he says.

Having closed all of his accounts at home and not opened any new ones, or even done any kind of business in Seattle, Drew began to suspect that a hospital worker had used information from his personal file to open credit card accounts in his name.

"It was obvious to me that somebody from this clinic had taken my information and said, 'This guy's got a terminal disease with no cure, and there's nothing we can do for him,' and he read my files," he says. "I'm in the hospital, practically in a coma, just so sick I can't even move ... and I'm getting a phone call. It's not a friend calling me to say, 'Hi'; it's creditors and collection agencies."

The banks were no help in catching the identity thief, he says. They simply closed the accounts, and would not provide him information that could help catch the person responsible for opening them. In some cases, it was even difficult to close them.

"They're saying in order to close the accounts they need to have a signed, notarized affidavit," he says. "I [asked], 'Did you require all this from the [person] who opened the account?' "

Drew says Seattle police, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies would not assign investigators because they simply did not have the personnel to pursue one identity theft--a crime with about 10 million American victims, according to a 2003 Federal Trade Commission report.

So he gathered information on his own. He had been too wiped out from the transplant to do anything for several months, but he began investigating once he started regaining strength.

A former mortgage broker with experience in public relations, Drew sent out press releases to local government and media outlets.

When a reporter from KING Channel 5 in Seattle came to the hospital, Drew jumped on the chance to get exposure.

"At that point I needed multiple daily infusions of blood," Drew says. "I was right in the middle of an infusion, I had catheters in my chest, and I said 'Unhook everything ... take all of this stuff off of me, and I demand that you wheel me downstairs so that I can give an interview.' "

After the story aired, people began calling the station with leads, which he pursued on his own.

"I needed constant infusion of magnesium, potassium, fluids, antibiotics--everything," he says. "So I had to carry a backpack with two pumps in it. They were pumping stuff into my heart constantly, and I would leave the hospital and go down to the docks in the evening and meet strangers ... who thought that maybe this could have been their neighbor and they wanted to show me some pictures."

Managers of stores where purchases had been made in his name also began cooperating with his requests for surveillance tapes. A Lowe's hardware store manager gave a tape to the police. A detective handed it over to KING, which aired it.

"By the next morning, 30 people had called in and identified the guy," he said.

The surveillance video confirmed what Drew uncovered--the man who made the purchase was a hospital employee named Richard Gibson.

"He was somebody who saw me every day," he says. "He was a lab technician who worked processing my blood specimens on a daily basis, who knew my disease, who knew who I was, who supposedly did not have access to my demographic files but obviously got them somehow."

Police went to arrest Gibson, but he was not at his home or at work. A short time later he surrendered himself, though.

His charges were bargained to a single crime: violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a relatively new law protecting patient privacy. On Nov. 5, 2004, Gibson was sentenced to 16 months in prison. He is the first person convicted of violating the act.

He must also pay $15,000 in restitution and repayment of legal fees. Though Drew could not be in court, he videotaped a statement that was shown during the hearing.

According to newspaper accounts of the sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez called Gibson's actions "the most deplorable I've witnessed in 15 years on the bench."

Meanwhile, Drew had returned from Seattle, again with negative results--his leukemia had come back again.

His search for a viable solution led him to discover the double-cord-blood transplant, a brand-new procedure that gives patients the stem cells from two umbilical cords.

Drew's cords, which came from Italy, have given him a completely new blood and immune system. His DNA is that of the Italian donors.

When someone receives an organ transplant, his or her immune system often attacks it in defense. In Drew's case, it's the opposite. His new immune system is now so healthy it is fighting with his body, as well as with itself, since it came from two different cords. He calls it a "three-way war" inside his body.

Since coming home in November, Drew has been relaxing. He moved back in with his parents, who also live in Los Gatos, and is writing a book about his experiences and figuring out what he's going to do next. Part of his plans include marrying girlfriend Nicole Floor, 23, but they have yet to set a date and say they are not in a hurry.

Drew says when he first found out he had leukemia, he told Floor to "get lost." He says he hated to see her waste her time with someone who had little chance of living.

"I already made up my mind that I was gonna stay with him whether I would just stay with him, as a friend or as his girlfriend," Floor says. "It wasn't an option for me to get lost."

Though she was attending college in Chico through most of the ordeal, she still made her way to visit him about every other weekend in Seattle and once a month in Minnesota.

"There were times where I couldn't get ahold of him and I wouldn't [talk to] him for three days, and I wouldn't know what was going on," she says. "But being there was also hard, because I had to see him in so much pain."

Both Floor and Drew's mother, Cindy, characterize him as a fighter--someone who isn't content to sit idly by while decisions are made for him.

"He definitely has always been very strong-willed and tenacious," Cindy Drew says. "Always the master of his own ship."

Drew says she and her family were grateful for the amount of support Los Gatans showed her son.

"You could just feel the town of Los Gatos was behind you," she says. "You really see how people can rally, and you see that support is vital."

The first donor to Drew's foundation even paid him a visit in Minneapolis. Los Gatos­Monte Sereno Police officer Bryan Paul had met him when Drew was first trying to rally support. Since Paul regularly patrolled the downtown area, he often ran into Drew and they quickly became friends.

"I flew out [to Minnesota] kind of on the spur of the moment," Paul says. "He seemed like he could use a little pick-me-up or a friendly face."

Paul describes Drew as honest, forthright and dynamic--a "go-getter" who never gives up fighting. His unwavering persistence assured Paul and others that he would survive. Paul says he never lost hope.

"If it wasn't Eric, I would [have]," he says. "But I can't tell you what the boy's capable of."

Additionally, Paul says Drew's detective work in solving the identity theft case was impressive. But for the "detective" himself, it wasn't an option.

"I decided this was going to be the last thing I ever did," Drew says. "This guy Gibson--am I angry at him? No, I'm thankful. I mean, he gave me something to fight for. He may have saved my life."

He says that, having walked the "razor-thin" line between life and death several times, he never let himself believe that he would lose his battle. Though he knew the odds weren't in his favor, he always hung on to inner hope.

"Spiritually you have to be ready to die," he says. "If you're not, and you fight it, think of how afraid you would be. In order to survive, you basically just have to fool yourself. It's almost a stupidity, like, I know I'm gonna die, but I'm just not gonna believe that."

An upcoming doctor's visit will tell him whether his cancerous cells have returned.

Whatever the results of that test, Drew is readying for his next fight. He wants to crusade for both identity-theft victims and people with leukemia.

To do the latter, he plans to get his leukemia foundation up and running again. He says adult cancer patients are often in the dark about the specifics of their illness and possible treatment, and there are few advocates to help them obtain that information.

For the former, he also wants to publish his story so that other fraud victims know how to get results.

But there's one thing he doesn't plan to do any time soon: complain.

To find out how to help Drew and other leukemia patients, visit www.drewfoundation.org.