07:43 PM PDT on Monday, May 1, 2006

By JOSEPHINE CHENG / Evening Magazine

Alex Martini lives every day like there's something to celebrate.

And there is.

Not only because this pint-sized, 8-year-old from Gig Harbor beat incredible odds to be alive and well, but what saved her is taking on a life far beyond what anyone imagined.

Alex with Nick

The Martini family's luck, both good luck and bad, started years ago, when Alex was a baby.

At 10 months, Alex was getting blood blisters on her ears – a mystery to their doctor until lab tests came in.

The odds are 2 in a million that a child this young would get acute mylogenous leukemia or AML.

Alex would undergo rounds of chemotherapy. Her first birthday was spent hooked up to a respirator in ICU.

"The survival rate we were given at that point was 38-40 percent," said Andrea Martini, Alex's mother.

After treatment, the leukemia came back.

Todd and Andrea learned the best hope was a cord blood transplant at Duke University. So the family moved to North Carolina for four months so Alex could have a procedure as daring as it was expensive.

Even with insurance picking up part of the tab, Todd and Andrea slid deeply into debt.

What got them through was that Alex was alive and Andrea was pregnant.

But then their bad luck ran in three's: The Martinis' second child, Nick, was born premature.

He weighed only 1 pound 9 ounces.

As he fought to survive, Andrea developed a serious staph infection that left her near death. And two years after transplant, alex relapsed again, needing a second cord blood transplant.

"I had my Job moment, was what I called it… Job in the Bible, who was asking God: Why are you doing this to me? How much more? How much more can go wrong at this point?" said Todd.

But Todd didn't get an answer. But in his bleakest moment he stumbled upon a way to turn their luck around.

It was coming up on Christmas time and they didn't have a lot of money to spend on Christmas presents.

While using Internet coupons to stretch their already thin budget, Todd thought why not use his Web design experience to start his own site, "Alex's Coupons," which earned commissions on people's purchases.

The site was an instant hit.

"It just kept going up and up. And all of a sudden, I found we weren't in debt anymore, and that was a nice thing," said Todd.

Nick the preemie is now a joyously normal preschooler and the earnings from the Web site allowed Alex to have a second cord blood transplant, plus costly experimental drugs that keep her alive after "seven" relapses.

They call Alex the Teflon kid because she really shouldn't be here. She should have died several years ago, but somehow she was a fighter and that really is what kept her alive.

She's a miracle.

"I'm looking forward to my next birthday," she said.

Since 2003, Alex's coupons has not only supported the Martini family,

It has allowed the family to support others who had helped them – groups like Starlight/Starbright Foundation, which serves seriously ill children.

The Martinis donate at least $1,000 a month to children's charities. They may start their own charity for children with cancer and, through Alex's Coupons, Todd still responds to hundreds of people who write him about leukemia.

Alex has regular checkups, and she's still cancer-free and doing great. The Web site "Alex's Coupons" enjoys amazing success generating $600,000 to $900,000 in sales every month.