HAMMOND | When Kris Howard celebrates his birthday from now on, his youngest brother, Trace Howard, gets the first piece of cake.

It's the least he can do.

Kris Howard, a 31-year-old Hammond police corporal, battled cancer and needed a life-saving bone marrow transplant to help keep it away. His brother, now a 17-year-old senior at Clark High School, was the best match.

"I don't think he actually understands he's my hero," Kris Howard said of his brother.

In April 2007, Kris Howard was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The treatment kept him away from his job for 375 days, and hospital stays were hard to explain to his son Ricky, now 5.

His wife, Anna Howard, was pregnant with their son, Andrew, who recently turned 1. She was in her senior year of college and wanted to quit, but Kris Howard wouldn't let her. He wanted her to have a degree in case he didn't survive. Someone needed to support the family, he said.

Anna Howard has since earned a degree in elementary education.

Kris Howard is doing well these days. His cancer is gone, and checkups every six weeks help ensure it stays at bay. He is more goal-oriented and doesn't take life so seriously.

In April, he returned to patrolling the streets of Hammond, now with the youth of a 17-year-old running through his veins, he jokes.

"I always say that I gave him my awesomeness," Trace Howard said.

The process involved the younger Howard taking injections twice a day in the days leading up to the procedure. The injections made his stem cells go into his bloodstream to be harvested in a process called apheresis.

After his blood was drawn from one arm, the stem cells were taken out, and the remainder was re-injected into his other arm. For six hours, Trace Howard was in a hospital bed and wasn't allowed to move, said their mother, Jenny Howard.

She said she relied on prayer for a successful outcome.

"I was just praying that all of it was going to work out," she said. "I really believe in the power of prayer."

Kris Howard treats the day of his transplant, Oct. 25, 2007, as a second birthday.

And two weeks before his first second birthday, Kris Howard and his wife are going to run in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Proceeds will benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.