Small Clown Brings Joy to Other Sick Children

Edward Arrioja Jr. isn’t much different from any other perky 12-year-old except that he’s smaller than most, is a bona fide clown and has cystic fibrosis.

In fact, it was his illness that introduced him to the world of clowning.

“It made me happy when the clowns came to entertain me and the other kids in the hospital,” said Edward, a sixth-grader at Holy Family School in Orange. “I wanted to give something back so I became a clown.”

He joined a clown class in Placentia and after graduating became a part of “Funny Business,” an adult clown group, except for him.

When his schedule permits, Edward also chips in at the monthly business meetings held by the colorful and outrageously costumed fun group.

And when he is healthy enough, Edward joins the other clowns at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) to entertain the bedridden kids there.

“I feel happy when I see the kids with a smile on their face,” he said. “I know it makes them feel good because it made me feel good.”

Some of the young patients were his bed chums when he was there for three weeks a couple of months ago. He has been in and out of the hospital many times over the years.

“I know a lot of them because we talk about our problems,” said Edward, who goes by the clown name of “Tuff Eddie,” which he said fits him. “I’m tough,” he boasts.

“We talk about everything, including sports and girls, but basically we’re all wishing for a cure someday,” he said. “I hope it will be soon.”

He has his own clown outfit and often attempts to put on his makeup but usually asks for help from his father, who is a clown known as “Tag-a-long.”

“I got that name because I didn’t become a clown until my son became one,” said his father, Edward Arrioja.

Edward Jr. said that most of his neighborhood friends treat him the same as everyone else, and he feels that they should.

“I’m no different than anyone else,” he said. “No one is actually born perfect. Everyone is born with something and sometimes it takes a while to get better.”

Edward Jr. knows everything about his condition and about his sister, Cheryl, who died seven years ago at age 7 from the same hereditary disease, which affects the lungs and digestive system of cystic fibrosis victims.

It affects 30,000 kids nationally and is the No. 1 genetic killer of children and young adults in the United States, according to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Edward has often talked about Cheryl with his parents, Diane and Edward Arrioja, who live in Orange.

“I learned about the stuff she could and couldn’t do,” said Edward Jr., who once rebelled at taking the medicine that helps keep him going. “Why should I,” he told them. “It didn’t help my sister.”

But his parents told him that more technology was helping him and if he took the medicine he would not have to remain in the hospital, which they call “his home away from home.”

“We never tell him fairy tales,” said his father, a postal worker. “He knows straight up about himself. We tell him that taking care of himself will prolong his life.”

He adds: “Maybe we are cold, but we don’t cry on each other’s shoulders and we don’t feel sorry for each other. That’s doesn’t do anything. That’s not for us.

“We do the best we can each day. For the most part, we take each day at a time.”

His mother, a telephone operator at St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton, urges her son to succeed.

“He can do whatever he sets his mind to do, no matter what the goal,” she said, “but right now, his main concern is a cure for his problem.”

For the time being and echoing her husband’s words: “We take it a day at a time and go on.”