The word meant nothing to Kevin Otts.

Leukemia.

Family photo (ENLARGE)

Cody Otts was diagnosed with major heart defects and DiGeorge syndrome after he was born. Repeated infections followed. After eight surgeries and an unsuccessful resuscitation, he died in his parents' arms.

Photos Atlanta fiscal crisis: Atlanta schools pension fund needs cash  ATL budget cuts: 53 police jobs won't be filled  Atlanta's CFO quits amid financial crisis  Police union: Try early retirement, strategic cuts  Atlanta council defies mayor, lowers taxes  Recent headlines: Giant panda Mei Lan celebrates her second birthday  City urges tough love for Atlanta beggars  Kidnapped man escapes, jumps to truck on I-285     • Atlanta and Fulton County news

So what?

He already wanted to die.

Otts had buried his infant son a year earlier, which threw the Atlanta police officer into a deep depression. He stopped caring about his job and drank more than anyone should. Then, at age 36, leukemia came calling.

"It didn't matter to me. I was like, 'Whatever,' " Otts said. "I had given up on living."

The cancer swimming through his blood sent the young policeman further into darkness. It took the near-collapse of his marriage to pull him back.

"The fear of dying, I don't think will ever be there again, because I know my son's waiting for me," Otts said. "But now, I'm in no hurry to do it."

Smooth start for family

Otts, now 37, grew up outside Detroit. He used his lanky frame to pluck footballs from the sky for his high school team. He went to Ferris State University in west-central Michigan to play football and study criminal justice.

Aside from childhood dreams of being a pro athlete, he never really considered being anything but a police officer. His grandfather was a Detroit cop; an uncle was a state trooper in Massachusetts; his younger sister is a police officer in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Otts moved to Atlanta to be a police officer in 1995 when the department was hiring up for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Two years later, he met his future wife, Missy, at a cop hangout in Buckhead. A civil engineer from a Navy family, she started out as a drinking buddy. They married in April 2001.

By the summer of 2002, both were settled at work. They bought a house near Jackson Lake, about 45 miles southeast of Atlanta.

Missy got pregnant six months later. They decided to name the child Cody Joseph Otts.

"I was thinking, 'college quarterback,' " Kevin said. "I could see it on the back of his uniform."

But there were signs of what lay ahead when a doctor saw a spot on the unborn baby's heart. The couple went to a specialist who gave them a clean bill of heath.

Cody was born on Oct. 23, 2003, at Rockdale Hospital. He had Kevin's nose and brown eyes and "my wife's crooked toes," he said.

Struggle to survive

Within 12 hours, doctors had bad news: Cody had major heart defects and DiGeorge syndrome, a rare congenital disease that can be fatal and has no known cure.

The couple felt misled. "They told us everything was fine, that there wasn't a thing wrong with Cody," Missy said.

When he was five days old, Cody had open-heart surgery — the first of eight surgeries over the next 18 months. Heart defects led to intestinal and lung problems. Then there were blood and stomach infections. "Every time we turned around, something went south," Missy said.

The couple's life revolved around keeping Cody alive. Missy, who was self-employed, put work on hold.

When Cody was 4 months old, he improved enough that doctors let Kevin and Missy take him home. Though his life was far from normal — he needed a feeding tube in his stomach — there were good times. Kevin and Cody watched football and hockey together on television, and Missy made her son giggle by singing and dancing.

"That was probably the best two months of my life," Kevin said. "We thought he was going to pull through."

The fun ended in April 2004, when more intestinal problems sent Cody back to the hospital for surgery. He spent most of the next year there, save for the occasional trip home. Kevin burned all his sick time and vacation days, and he or Missy spent most nights in Cody's hospital room.

Without Missy's income they had to tap into their home-equity line of credit and racked up $35,000 in credit-card debt.

"We had nothing," Missy said. "I just remember looking around for anything we could sell or pawn."

She begged Kevin to call his dad in Michigan for money. He refused, saying he'd work more overtime.

When their bank account dwindled to $117, Missy went behind Kevin's back and asked his father for $2,000 — enough to get them through the month.

By May 4, 2005, doctors gave up on Cody. They sent him home again, this time saying there was nothing left to do.

At 2 a.m. that night, Cody's heart stopped. Kevin and an in-home nurse got the boy's heart beating again before a medical helicopter flew him back to the hospital.

Later that day, Cody's heart and lungs gave out. Hospital staffers tried to pump life into him, but it wasn't working.

"So I just told them that was enough — let my boy have some peace," Kevin said.

He and Missy held their 18-month-old son until he died.

Cody had an Atlanta police motorcade and bagpiper at his funeral.

In the weeks after Cody's death, Kevin and Missy ignored his room. They eventually sold the house and bought one across the lake, but the move didn't shake their pain. Missy distracted herself with work. Kevin stopped caring about his.

"I didn't take much pride, I guess, in the job I was doing," Kevin said.

Once a weekend drinker, he started guzzling beer night after night, sometimes into the early-morning hours.

Cody's struggle had strained Kevin and Missy's marriage; his death brought it to the breaking point. They fought constantly and pulled away from each other.

"It was almost when you looked into Kevin's eyes, he wasn't there," Missy said. "It was just hollow."

Both felt angry that Cody had died and guilty that they were alive.

"When I saw Kevin, I saw Cody and I'd get mad," Missy said.

A second blow

One night in June 2006, while Kevin chased a murder suspect through a wooded area in DeKalb County, a pain in his chest stopped him in his tracks. He went to a hospital on his way home.

After running some tests, a doctor told Kevin he had a hernia. There's something else, the doctor added.

"What's that?" Kevin asked.

"Your white blood cell count," the doctor said.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's through the roof," the doctor said.

Days later, a bone marrow biopsy revealed leukemia.

"Everybody was saying the same thing: Unbelievable," Kevin said.

Kevin had an aggressive form of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that killed an estimated 4,500 people in the country last year.

Word spread at the police department. Tired of pity from people over Cody's death, he started making jokes. He said that he must have done something awful in a previous life. Other officers followed his lead.

"If you lose your battle with cancer, can I have your boat?" one investigator joked.

Joking aside, officers rallied around their colleague. Kevin was out of vacation and sick time, so officers donated their time to him, allowing him to take leave and still get a paycheck. About 20 shaved their heads in a show of support at a fund-raiser for him.

Kevin needed six months of chemotherapy. His doctor said he might become infertile, so he went to a sperm bank — just in case.

During chemo, Kevin was only allowed to drink once a month, in moderation. Still wrestling with Cody's death, he ignored the rules.

"How dare you?" Missy told him. "Your son fought every day for his life and you're giving up."

In December 2006, they got in a fight worse than the others. Missy doesn't remember how it started, but she knows that alcohol fueled it.

"And the next thing I know, Kevin's walking out the door," she said.

But instead of ending the marriage, the brief separation yanked Kevin out of his self-pity. He realized that he didn't want to lose his wife, too.

"I missed her from the minute I left," Otts said. "Being away for a while, I just couldn't picture my life without her."

He returned days later and the couple started talking — really communicating this time. They decided to stay together. Kevin began fighting for his life and his marriage. He drank less and spent more time with Missy.

"I felt like I had a partner in life again, instead of a roommate," Missy said. "I felt like Kevin started to notice me again."

Weeks later, his cancer went into remission.

The news made Missy ecstatic. For Kevin, it was a relief. "I was like, 'That's good. I don't have to worry about that for a little while,' " Kevin said.

Two months later he returned to work, and coworkers noticed a difference: This time around, he was happy to be there.

"Little things weren't upsetting me," he said. "For some reason, things started feeling better."

Last summer, the department had an opening in the homicide unit — known as the "Hat Squad" because detectives have a tradition of wearing fedoras.

He was assigned to the unit in November. On New Year's Eve, he broke his first case. Since then, he has closed two others. Investigators chipped in and bought him a fedora. He's one of them now.

"He's the Kevin he used to be," said fellow homicide detective Anthony Gentile, a close friend. "He's got his laughter back, his sense of humor. He's definitely got his work ethic back."

Fight continues

Now it's time for Kevin and Missy to look ahead to a future that might include another child.

Kevin's not done with his fight, though. His doctor expects the leukemia, which carries a 75 percent chance of survival in the first five years, to return.

"I try not to think about it that much," Kevin said. "Sometimes it gets a little tough when you hear people talking about retirement. I don't think I'm going to have that. I know I'm not going to grow old on a rocking chair on my porch."