Robert Guerrero is plenty tough outside the ring too

Define toughness. Punching a man in the face? Or braiding a girl’s hair?

Robert Guerrero chose to braid hair, and no amount of brutal acts in the boxing ring, where Guerrero earns his living, could better measure a man’s toughness.

Last winter, Guerrero, 27, was scheduled to leave his Gilroy home to train for his first International Boxing Federation super-featherweight title defense when Stanford Hospital doctors reinforced the gravity of his wife Casey’s battle against leukemia.

Casey Guerrero, 26, had survived three relapses of the cancerous disease between 2007 and 2009, when she was told a donor in Europe had provided a matching bone marrow sample.

“They didn’t sugarcoat anything to me. They told me [Casey] had a 50-50 chance to make it or not with the transplant,” Robert Guerrero said.

So Casey Guerrero underwent a Jan. 25 transplant operation. Robert Guerrero ached at seeing his wife and junior high sweetheart suffer through painful side effects of the transplant, and he couldn’t get one concerned doctor’s cautious post-recovery piece of advice out of his head: “Be ready to make arrangements.”

In early February, he bowed out of the HBO-televised main event scheduled for March 27 against Michael Katsidis, surrendering his IBF title belt.

“It was going to be the fight of my career,” Guerrero said. “I had to push it aside for the fight of my wife’s life.”

But the transplant seems to have worked. Casey is back home raising her family, she has been declared cancer-free and she plans to attend Robert’s July 31 junior-welterweight fight on HBO pay-per-view against former world lightweight champion Joel Casamayor in Las Vegas.

“Her fight was not by her choice, but it was very inspiring. Our plan is still coming through. It’s been a bumpy road, but we’ve walked through it,” Robert Guerrero said.

During his wife’s recovery, Guerrero stayed in Menlo Park, near the hospital, to be at Casey’s bedside. And he regularly made the 50-mile trek home to Gilroy to help take care of the couple’s children, Savannah, 5, and Robert Jr., 3, with the help of his parents and in-laws.

In the days after Guerrero pulled out of the March fight, he spent a day trying to comfort Casey through her most difficult hours. Her mouth and throat were so ravaged by radiation treatments she couldn’t talk, and pain medication wasn’t helping. Doctors told Guerrero his wife might not survive if infection set in.

“I had a 45-minute drive home that night, and as soon as I got on the freeway I just broke down in tears, all the way home,” he said. “I cried myself to sleep. It was the worst feeling I’ve ever had, seeing someone I had loved since I was 14 years old like that.”

He fed and bathed the children and took it upon himself to brush and style Savannah’s hair like Casey used to. Braids and all.

“There were lots of times I was close to cracking, I was on a limb,” Guerrero said.

For more peace of mind, he’d duck into his home gym in Gilroy and batter punching bags.

“It relieves a lot of stress,” Guerrero said. “It’s therapeutic.”

Meanwhile, Casey battled the leukemia with resilience rooted in her faith and devotion to family. Even in her worst days, Robert said, Casey would raise from the hospital bed to walk and try to shower.

“I didn’t want to think negative at all,” she said.

Casey said Robert would watch a movie with her in the hospital, ask what the doctors had said and engage in the small talk of life like they did growing up in Gilroy, Robert the son of farm laborers who lived around the corner from Casey, the daughter of a roofing contractor.

“I was relieved and happy to have him stay. The things the doctors were telling me were straight up and scary. I wanted him by my side for it. But it was all his idea,” she said.

After his wife recovered, Guerrero returned to the ring April 30 in Las Vegas and scored an eighth-round technical knockout.

If he beats Casamayor, it’s likely Guerrero (26-1-1, 18 KOs) will emerge as a central player at 140 pounds, boxing’s deepest talent pool.

“He can go into this next chapter with a clear mind. … He gave up his title to care for his wife, and that says a lot. Robert could’ve just taken the payday [in March]. I know he could’ve used the money. He didn’t do that,” said Guerrero’s promoter, Richard Schaefer.

“That shows you the character of this man, how, with the right sense of values, you can take on these unexpected things in life and come out better.”

lance.pugmire@latimes.com