Cleveland — Most days, Will Duncan's mother needs only to promise her son a class of chocolate milk to rouse the 5-year-old from a nap.

But on this particular day, Will clutched his blanket tightly and buried his face in his pillow, rebuffing his mom’s wake-up calls. Perhaps he was thinking ahead to those doses of steroids that help boost his recovering immune system, weakened several years ago by a potentially deadly disease.

But eventually, young Will decided that chocolate milk and the chance to engage a visitor were more important than a little extra sleep.

Within minutes, Will, who attends the Head Start program at Cleveland Elementary School, was zipping about, showing a reporter his favorite toys and explaining his future plans. His parents, Thad and Shawn Duncan, beamed but also laughed as their son declared he would one day be a doctor, mechanic, fireman and bus driver.

Two of his professions of choice reflect Will’s love of cars. Although he’s years away from driving, Will already has attachments to a variety of Chevrolet models, including the Corvette and Camaro. He also favors the Bel-Air and especially likes cars that are slightly worn, or, as he puts it, “when they’re funny-looking.”

Parents Thad and Shawn suspect their oldest child’s longing to enter the medical field stems from his own life experiences. After all, it was just two years ago this month that Will was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL.

“I was scared for him, not knowing what might happen to him,” Thad Duncan says of Will’s diagnosis, which he received on May 1, 2006. “We couldn’t believe it, and we were praying that it wouldn’t be true.”

The day that changed the family began simply enough. As mom and dad began trying to potty train Will, Shawn saw symptoms of what she thought might be a urinary tract infection.

A visit to the doctor confirmed Shawn’s suspicion: Will did have a urinary tract infection. Shawn said she thought that alone would explain his pale complexion and low energy level. Doctors told her otherwise.

“They told us his blood work didn’t look quite right,” she said. “I wondered what that meant, and I thought they were going to tell me he didn’t have a good diet or something. But they said that while they weren’t quite sure, they thought he could have leukemia. At the time, I knew leukemia had to be bad, but I really didn’t understand what it was.”

According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, or LLS, the disease develops when a cell in the bone marrow weakens and multiplies. The immature red and white blood cells and platelets grow and develop, crowding out normal cells. Acute forms of the disease spread rapidly and can quickly lead to conditions like anemia and the inability to fight infection.

“There’s no cure for any of the blood cancers,” said Emily Blust, special-events coordinator for the Eastern North Carolina chapter of LLS. “It’s a really scary thing for the families.”

Will’s case is no exception. Thad Duncan said his son’s illness radically changed the family’s lifestyle. In the initial stages of the disease, when Will’s immune system was at its weakest, the Duncans said no to visits from sick friends and relatives, or they had visitors wear surgical masks. On the rare occasion the family left the house together, Thad said, they would choose restaurants with drive-through windows and stay sealed inside their car.

“It was basically like we were all living inside a bubble,” Shawn Duncan said.

Will’s trips to UNC Hospitals for treatment are fewer and farther between, but his battle is far from over. Will is still undergoing chemotherapy and must take a daily dose of more than a half-dozen pills. Also, he undergoes quarterly spinal taps and blood tests, among other things. But his family isn’t complaining.

“Now that he’s in the last phase of his chemo, you could say that it’s a little bit easier,” Shawn Duncan said. “We’ll be done with that in the fall or winter of 2009. And we’ve been blessed from the beginning that he was in remission one week after he started his treatment. He was a quick responder.”

Thad Duncan said his family had been blessed also by an outpouring of support from its church in Johnston — Shiloh Baptist Church — and from a church in Vale in Lincoln County, where the Duncans used to live. The churches have supplied meals, money and lots of prayers, he said.

The Duncans have also received an outpouring of support from groups like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which is sending the family to Disney World on Sunday, and from LLS. That agency is using Will as one of the faces of its annual Man & Woman of the Year fund-raising campaign, which raises money to support those affected by blood cancers.

Blust said it’s an important cause for communities to rally around. “When the [Leukemia & Lymphoma] Society was founded years ago by a family who lost their son to the disease, the survival rate was only 4 percent,” she said. “The rate now is 85 percent.”

“But the incidents are not decreasing,” Blust added. “In fact, there is a new diagnosis of blood cancer every five minutes, and we lose someone to these diseases every 10 minutes. Even though the survival rates are increasing and people are living a lot longer with the diseases, there are still a lot of people getting them.”

“We’ve funded over $550 million in research since 1954, and currently we’re funding $7.1 million in research at Duke and UNC,” Blust said. “This coming year we’ll fund about $65 million. Giving to this cause means so much because it helps us increase awareness and helps us raise funds. That means help for a lot of families that might not otherwise receive it.”

Families like the Duncans and the family of Madison Smith of Dunn, this year’s other campaign designee. Madison was diagnosed with leukemia in 2003.

“We’re thankful to be where we are with how far we’ve come with our own child and her diagnosis,” said Allison Smith, Madison’s mom. “The Society has helped us a lot through education and conference calls through the whole process.”

“To me, the amazing thing about the campaign is that I think people are genuinely good and that you’d be surprised what people will do when you just ask,” she added. “We’ve done well in the past and so far this year, and it makes a huge difference when you’ve got friends and people around the community that truly care.”

The Duncans couldn’t agree more. “The reason we’ve allowed Will to be part of research studies and that we’ve gotten involved with groups like LLS is so we can see the survival rate be 100 percent,” Shawn said. “We do it, and we hope that people will support these causes, because 85 percent is low if your child is one of the other 15 percent.”

For more information about the Man & Woman of the Year campaign or to donate to the cause, visit www.lls.org/ncemwoy.