Matthew Stasik stepped out of a white shuttle van one Friday night in suburban Arlington, Va., and offered a hand to help his prom date down the steep steps in tottery heels. Out stepped Charawn High, sparkling in a red ball gown.

Then Susie Raeder emerged in glittering navy blue. Behind her came Kelly Printz in periwinkle. Then Kathleen O’Grady, in a pewter strapless. And, finally, Kim Minus, in floor-length pink.

They all got a kiss on the cheek and matching blue sashes announcing their common mission: “Matthew’s Prom Date 2003.” In a stylish tuxedo, top hat and cane, Stasik escorted his entourage through the crowd of teenagers and into the Sheraton National Hotel — three women on one arm and two on the other.

His goal: “To have all the fun I can have in one night.”

The 17-year-old senior at Alexandria, Va.’s Bishop Ireton High School had cause to celebrate. Earlier this month, doctors at Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children declared him cancer-free, for the second time. In seventh grade, he had beaten non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Now, after three years of chemotherapy, infections and a dozen hospitalizations, he had triumphed over leukemia.

Who better to party with at the prom, he said, than five of the pediatric oncology nurses who helped save his life?

“I know my nurses so well, and I didn’t have a relationship with any girls at my school,” Stasik said. “The nurses were always there for me in the hospital. This is sort of my way of repaying them.”

The nurses, most married and in their twenties, said they were happy to leave their scrubs behind for a night out with a patient who made a heartbreaking hospital unit of gravely ill children a place to laugh.

“He fought his battle really well,” said High, 25, a clinical technician. “You hang out with him 10 to 15 minutes, and you immediately fall in love with him.”

Stasik will get frequent checkups over the next five years. This fall, he plans to attend Penn State University. He said he wants to become a doctor.

High school senior Matthew Stasik, 17, is surrounded on the dance floor by his nurses and prom dates. Stasik was celebrating a victory over cancer for the second time at the May 23 dance.

But first, the prom.

When Stasik arrived with an entourage of women May 23, few of his classmates were really surprised.

“It’s pretty typical Matt that he’d have five girls with him,” said senior Richard Schmitt, 18. “He missed his entire sophomore year, and he was kind of out of the loop junior year getting better. This was his first real year back, so it’s definitely an eventful end.”

The group posed for an official prom photo, with the five nurses huddled around a grinning Stasik and kissing his bald head. They ate dinner in the ballroom and mingled with his friends. And then they danced until midnight. One of the first songs of the evening was an old disco hit.

At the front corner of the packed, pulsating floor, Stasik and his nurses danced in a tight group and sang along. Their voices screaming the chorus — “I will survive!” — rose over the crowd.