Soccer for cystic fibrosis.

Many of you may already know Caleb and Aleena's story. Both were born with cystic fibrosis, which is a lung disease that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. They are both fighters, and live life as if they are no different than the average child in their school. They don't like to be treated differently. They both started playing soccer at a young age and Caleb is now in club soccer as a defender for the Pateadores Los Angeles. Last year he was on the flight 3 team but has now been moved to the next level up...flight 2. Due to his condition, he is on the smaller side, but plays large. He has an amazing coach, Pablo Lastorta that treats him the same as all the other boys and pushes him to always do his best and not back down. His pulmonology doctors at Children's Hospital are amazed at his health and level of fitness. Both Caleb and Aleena are two of the healthiest children with CF currently at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. They do have set backs at times, but it never seems to discourage them. Currently, both are partaking in a new drug study that will hopefully benefit other children with CF. They both Volunteered to partake in the study knowing it would benefit the fight against CF and help other children in the future. They both had to sign waivers stating they understood they would need to go CHLA every 3 months for a whole day of research that included a blood draw. Mind you, this is a 7 and 9 year old agreeing to having blood drawn! This will go towards new goals for his home field which will ultimately result in more teams wanting to scrimmage on the Pateadores home field, as well as towards cost of tournaments giving Caleb more chances to increase his playing time and build on his current level of fitness that has resulted in a positive step forward in his health.