It’s a lot of work being Christian Arballo.  First of all, you’ve got to be 14-years-old. The sound of that makes most people cringe.  Secondly, you have to surf competitively and successfully while holding titles such as longboarding champ of the Interscholastic Surfing Federation and torchbearer for the Cal State Games.  The most challenging part of being Christian Arballo, however, is doing all of this while suffering from a serious heart condition that forced him to undergo open chest and open heart surgery before the age of seven. Despite all of the work that goes into doing what he does, Christian does it all while having fun.

“It’s a lot of work to wake up early,” Christian said of his competitions. “You got to get all your stuff together, drive to far places and get in cold water.”  

Christian puts things into perspective by remembering what he went through with his illness. Many times he worried about never being able to play like other kids and whether he would see his next birthday. With these things in mind, however, the early mornings don’t seem so bad.  

If he doesn’t remember how lucky he is at 6 a.m., his dad Chris surely does.  Watching his son play as an infant, Chris recognized the work it took for Christian to keep up with others, sweating while no other kids his age would and being slower than he should have been.  

The doctors found defects in Christian’s heart; a growth in his heart was preventing blood from getting to where it needed to be.  The actual problem was miniscule in size, but monumental in effect.  A couple of heart surgeries and cool scars later, Christian was back to playing baseball with his friends and surfing with his dad.  

During an annual checkup with the cardiologist in order to measure the reoccurrence of the defect, the doctor detected something dangerous.  The defect was growing again in his heart despite all the work done to keep that from happening. Christian’s future was quickly fading.  Thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Christian was able to take his mind off of all of the heavy times by traveling to Kauai, not to surf, but to play baseball in a tournament he had dreams of being in.

Now, looking back, Christian wished he had instead taken a surf trip to somewhere far away, as his new passion for surfing takes the place of baseball.  His dad, on the other hand, is just glad he is anywhere at all.  It turns out that the doctor was just being over-cautious, something his dad was happy to hear.

Being this particular 14-year-old, however, definitely requires a lot of work, but Christian’s rocky road to becoming a teenager has brought him farther than most teens could imagine.  He’s consistently ranking higher and higher at his surf contests in both shortboarding and longboarding, constantly adding to his sponsors (that range from No Fear to Ocean Minded), and now is working on Quiver, a surf film that will be donating a portion of its proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  

It seems like the only evidence of Christian’s condition are the scars on his chest (which he will proudly show you). The proof of his recovery is the trophies on the wall (which his dad will proudly show you).  Sometimes, after a long day of football or after surfing in many heats in a contest, his body, because of his condition, catches up to him and slows him down.  But, after all that he has accomplished in such a short time, there usually isn’t much work left anyway.