It’s back-to-school time for students all over North Texas, but for one family in South Dallas, back-to-school isn’t just a day on the calendar. It’s a miracle.

“When doctors, his doctors, see him, they’re shocked at how well Neeno’s doing,” Diana Mendoza said of her 9-year-old son, Neeno.

In 2022, Neeno had just celebrated his 6th birthday. He woke up with leg pain.

“It was, like, hurting bad,” Neeno said. “I had to, like, keep going to the chair to go sit down.”

A trip to an emergency clinic led to a trip the the ER, followed by many tests, and then news no parent wants to hear.

‘His white blood cell count was very, very high,” Mendoza said. “That’s when they were like, hey, we believe he has leukemia.”

But cancer wasn’t the worst of it. Ten months into Neeno’s treatment, he came down with a fungal infection that caused a stroke and blindness in his right eye.

“They were giving him 3-7 days left to live,” Mendoza said. “Being that it was March when all this was happening, I was just like hey, there’s one thing I don’t want to regret; that’s not celebrating his 7th birthday.”

That’s when Make-A-Wish North Texas stepped in to grant a ‘rush wish’ to throw Neeno a birthday party.

“In those ‘rush wish’ situations, it’s not often that the outcome is one that we hope for; however, we call them Make-a-Wish miracles,” Make-a-Wish North Texas CEO Kim Elenez said. “They happen all the time!”

“When I realized, like, oh my God! It’s like everybody came to my birthday party,” Neeno said. “I was happy!”

“Everybody was there! It was a packed playroom,” Mendoza said. “And immediately you could just see his spirit lift up, you know?”

Make-A-Wish North Texas’ ‘Summer of Wishes’ campaign helps make children’s wishes come true. They are hoping to grant an additional 30 wishes this summer.

“So we can make more magic happen for families like Neeno and the nearly 12-hundred that are waiting right here in North Texas,” Elenez said.

The Mendoza’s wish was so much more than a birthday party.

“It brought hope to us that he was gonna be ok,” Mendoza said.

Neeno is now more than 2 years from nearly dying. He’s learned to talk and walk and eat all over again, and this year, went back to school for the first time.