Saturday fundraiser helps 2 seriously ill children

Eleven-year-old Kyle Engblom has a disease doctors across the country have been unable to diagnose. Taylor Ryan, 8, has one so rare doctors know little about it.

Both will receive a boost from friends and neighbors Saturday at a fundraising soccer tournament in East Islip organized by two local soccer coaches.

The Kick 4 A Cure tournament, scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Westbrook Sports Complex on Montauk Highway, will feature concession stands, raffles, an auction, and activities for kids.

Guests will include the Long Island Ducks' Quacker Jack and professional soccer and lacrosse players from the Rough Riders and Long Island Lizards.

Kyle was a normal toddler. But after coming down with a fever at age 3, he began to have trouble walking, his mother and his pediatrician said.

"For some unknown reason, he has a progressive decline in his neurological muscle function," said Kyle's pediatrician, Dr. Timothy George, of West Islip. "The only thing that's not affected is his mood. He is happy. It's incredible."

Kyle, who will attend East Islip Middle School in the fall, uses a walker for short distances and a wheelchair for longer ones. "He despises the wheelchair," said his mother, Gina Engblom.

His parents use their vacation time to travel to doctors across the country. Last year Kyle was examined by a team of doctors at the National Institutes of Health, the government medical research center that investigates rare diseases.

So far, they have no answers.

Taylor has histiocytosis, a rare blood disease in which an excess of white blood cells can attack bones, organs and the central nervous system. A lesion on her brain is affecting her grip and her balance. She also suffers petit mal seizures.

Taylor, who will be in third grade at John F. Kennedy Elementary School, plays on the East Islip Dynamite soccer team. Her coaches, Ken Florenz and Mike Cummings, organized the benefit.

Taylor has received two intravenous immune globulin treatments, which cost her family $4,000 each. On Monday, she will begin chemotherapy, said her mother, Teresa Ryan.

"It's going to be a tremendous help and a relief," Ryan said of the benefit. "We will never forget what everyone's done for us."