Three-year-old Gavin Anduze is about as active as any 3-year-old could be. All boy.

So there was little surprise when asked by the Make-A-Wish Foundation what he’d like if he could have what he wanted that his answer would be a swing set.

This Sunday, his wish will come true.

A coordinator for the foundation will present Gavin with his swing set this Sunday as well as a party for him, his parents — Andre and April Anduze — and other family members and friends.

Make-A-Wish Foundation is a nonprofit organization that makes wishes come true for children with life-threatening illnesses such as Gavin, who suffers from a blood disorder.

About a year ago, Gavin was referred to the foundation, said his mom.

“He wasn’t talking too much, but the one thing he wanted to do was swing,” she said. “He always wanted to go to the neighbor’s house to swing, but he really couldn’t be around others.”

By Thursday morning, a truck had delivered two piles of mulch in preparation for the equipment at the Anduze home, which is in the Douglasville part of Paulding County.

But inside, Gavin was watching a kid show on TV while playing with a pile of toys on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor.

His big brown eyes are friendly and inquisitive and fearless for one so young. That has served him well in his short life.

Gavin, the Anduzes’ only child, was born on Nov. 16, 2006, at WellStar Cobb Hospital and was diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia (SAA), a blood disorder caused by bone marrow failure, in December 2008.

“He started bruising really bad from just about anything (he came in contact with),” April Anduze said, explaining Gavin’s initial symptom. “It looked like we had beat him.”

His pediatrician immediately sent the family to have blood work done on the tyke. It showed his platelet count was 8,000, instead of the approximately 150,000 it should have been, she said.

He was initially diagnosed with immune thrombocytopenic purpura, a syndrome in which a decreased number of circulating platelets (thrombocytopenia) manifests as a bleeding tendency, easy bruising (purpura), or leakage of blood from capillaries into skin and mucous membranes, according to www.emedicine.medscape.com.

“Most kids rebound on their own from this but he never did,” April said.

Around that time, Gavin’s white and red blood cells began to drop and a bone marrow biopsy was done, which confirmed the SAA diagnosis.

“Our main concern was (that it was) cancer. We’d never even heard of this,” April said, adding that there was no family history of the condition.

That began a series of blood and platelet transfusions at the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Normally a person with SAA is given a bone marrow transplant, according to his grandmother, Teresa Thomann, but since he did not have a match, Gavin was given an ATG treatment.

ATG (anti-thymocyte globulin) is an immunosuppressant, a drug that lowers the body’s immune response, according to www.aamds.org, which said scientists believe aplastic anemia results from the immune system attacking and destroying bone marrow stem cells. ATG kills the specific cells that attack the bone marrow stem cells, allowing the bone marrow to grow and make new blood cells.Gavin is responding well to the treatment, which he received in March 2009, and while he still has monthly doctor appointments, it’s nothing like Dec. 2008, when he was in the hospital for most of the month.

At one time, Gavin had to steer clear of others for fear that it would affect his compromised immune system.

On Sunday, he’ll behave like the average three-year-old, on a swing, surrounded by family and friends.