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Local Teenage Athlete Battling Bone Cancer

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – It's a long way from Children's Hospital to the pitcher's mound, where Eli Swierczewski once took command of the game.

The 13-year-old athlete from Blessed Sacrament School, Natrona Heights, is being treated for bone cancer.

His mother, Pam Swierczewski, says he first noticed a problem during basketball season.

"He actually had some pain in his right arm. He wasn't able to shoot. Follow through."

"So were were like, OK, it's probably from playing usually a little longer than you would," Eli says.

"April came," his mother adds, "and Eli pitches. And he started to warm up and pitch."

"My arm was hurting, and for us that's normal. We used ice, occasionally Motrin if it's hurting that much."

"After a while, his shoulder actually swelled."

A biopsy revealed Ewings sarcoma. Surgery followed.

Dr. Erika Friehling, Eli's oncologist, says he's tolerating chemo and radiation treatments very well. Nevertheless, she says, "It's a lot to handle when they find out they're not going to be able to go to school as they normally were planning. Not to be able to participate in atheltics. And we help support them through that, while giving them hope they'll be able to return to all that and a normal life shortly."

Eli plans to get off the sidelines and onto the soccer field by next fall. He knows that a true athlete never gives up.

His parents and four siblings support him all the way.

"I think just everybody looks to him as their own kind of hero," his mother says. "And he definitely is."

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