Three-year-old Andrew Mueting of Dodge City is a bright, happy-go-lucky, energetic little boy -- some would say a one-in-a-million kid.

But at four months of age, doctors gave him a bleak prognosis for life. Born with malignant infantile osteopetrosis (MIOP), an exceedingly rare blood disorder that affects approximately 20 U.S. babies a year, Andrew was expected to spend the few years he had on earth fighting anemia and infections, struggling with weak bones and most assuredly would face blindness and deafness.

Now, thanks to a new procedure that utilizes adult stem cells, there’s every hope in the world that Andrew will grow to an old age with few ill effects.

It’s a procedure that flies in the face of arguments used by embryonic stem cell research proponents. It’s not supposed to work, they’ll say. But it does, and it did.

The troubles began for Nick and Paula Mueting soon after Andrew was born; he wasn’t growing; it was a struggle for him to eat; and he had a bulge atop his head where most babies have a soft spot.

"He spent a week in a Wichita hospital," Andrew’s father Nick Mueting said. "They didn’t know exactly what was wrong. They saw on a blood test he was slightly anemic. Finally they took some X-rays and realized that all of his ribs were fractured and his bones appeared very dense."

A radiologist looked at the films, recalled a very rare disorder she had studied in school, and diagnosed the illness.

"Against the doctor’s advice, we started researching osteopetrosis on the internet," Mueting said. "They warned us of the severity of the disorder, but we had to learn what we could do to help our little boy." Because the disease is so rare, there are only a few facilities in the country that treat it. One is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. It was there that Mueting learned of a machine created by a German scientist that would remove the T-cells from adult stem cells.

The T-cells in adult stem cells are what can lead to Graph Versus Host Disease (GVHD) – a refusal of the body to accept the new, life-saving cells. Proponents of embryonic stem cell research use the claim to back up their argument in support of embryonic stem cell research. The Catholic Church is strongly opposed to embryonic stem cell research because it requires the killing of an unborn child.

According to Mueting, the new procedure, which is already being used throughout Europe, cleans the harmful T-cells out of the adult stem cells, so the body no longer rejects them. The method significantly reduces the possibility of GVHD.

With the new treatment in mind -- the only hope Andrew had for a cure -- the Muetings packed up and moved temporarily to Memphis.

"Andrew had to go through eight days of chemotherapy to completely wipe out his immune system," Mueting said. "During the last five days of his treatment, I took a medicine that helped my body produce a lot of stem cells in my blood. At the end of that period – on the same day of the transplant – I was hooked up to a machine for five hours as it extracted the stem cells from my blood. The stem cells ran through this machine that pulled out the potentially harmful T-cells."

When the filtering was completed, 50 CCs of stem cells from Andrew’s father were injected into his blood.

"The doctor told me, ‘Here’s where the hard part begins,’" Mueting said.

Andrew spent the next 77 days in the intensive care unit, more than 50 of which were spent in a medically induced coma. Nick and Paula would never leave Memphis during those difficult days – days made much easier by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s unique ability to help families.

"St Jude provided us temporary housing," Mueting said. "They even have a ‘parent room’ with a couch-like bed right in the hospital. That’s where one of us stayed every night while the other slept in Andrew’s room."

St. Jude also removes the stress of worrying about how families are going to pay the bills; the Muetings were able to concentrate entirely on their child.

"St. Jude is kind of different," Mueting explained. "They bill the insurance company, but whatever insurance doesn’t pay, they don’t require from the patient family. They took care of our housing and helped with the meals. We were well taken care of."

It has been more than two years since the Muetings brought their son home from the hospital. During that time, the Muetings have made close to 20 trips back to Memphis for follow-up care, and have devoted much time to helping Andrew fully recover through physical, occupational, speech and vision therapies. Andrew is about to graduate to a six-month interval between check-ups, which consist of bone scans, X-rays, lab work, therapy sessions, and other tests; but the prognosis is very good.

"That kid likes everything," Mueting said laughing. "Our families have helped us so much to make sure that Andrew didn’t miss a beat. He’s really a bright kid; it’s truly amazing. He remembers just about everything. Ask him to sing a song and he’ll sing it for you. He knows the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors. He’s known that for a year. Intelligence wise, it hasn’t slowed him down a bit."

It seems there is just one hurdle left for Andrew to jump on the road to full recovery. At three years old, Andrew still struggles with eating. The early conditions of MIOP made it nearly impossible for Andrew to breathe through his nose, making it difficult for him to master a bottle. "You have to breathe through your nose when drinking from a bottle," Mueting said. "If a baby has to choose breathing or eating, he’s going to choose to breathe. Because of this, eating has never really been that rewarding for Andrew."

Andrew is just now learning to chew food; the Muetings still give him much nourishment through a tube; but he’s learning.