{"id":18900,"date":"2013-04-08T10:40:06","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T14:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=18900"},"modified":"2013-04-08T15:50:58","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T19:50:58","slug":"alston-has-leukemia-takes-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=18900","title":{"rendered":"Alston Has Leukemia, Takes Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Revolution<\/a>

Revolution defender Kevin Alston (left) has been diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, and will take an indefinite leave to undergo treatement. (Photo: Chris Aduama\/aduama.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

On Monday, the Revolution announced that\u00a0left back Kevin Alston has chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a rare but treatable form of leukemia, and will take an indefinite leave of absence to undergo treatment.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old defender\u00a0started all four of the team’s\u00a0games this season, and\u00a0has played the entirety of his professional career\u00a0with the Revolution, who\u00a0selected him in the first round (10th overall) of the 2009 SuperDraft.<\/p>\n

“The Revolution fully supports Kevin as he begins treatment,” Revolution General Manager Michael Burns said in a statement on Monday. “Right now, the most important thing for Kevin, and his family, is to concentrate on returning to full health. Kevin’s had a tremendous attitude since the diagnosis and his positivity is an inspiration for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the team release, Alston’s treatment will not require hospitalization, and that he expects to return to the team in the future.\u00a0According to the National Cancer Institute, CML\u00a0as a disease in which the bone marrow makes too many white blood cells. Symptoms of CML include tiredness, night sweats, and fever.<\/p>\n

Shortly after news broke of Alston’s diagnosis, a number of fellow players, including\u00a0Brad Guzan, Nick Rimando and\u00a0former teammate Benny Feilhaber took to Twitter to wish\u00a0the Revolution left back well.<\/p>\n

Alston has started all of the 116 career\u00a0games he’s played for the Revolution. He\u00a0recently moved from his customary\u00a0right back spot\u00a0to left back after injuries forced head coach Jay Heaps to shuffle defenders toward the tail end of the 2012 season.<\/p>\n

Chris Tierney, who began\u00a0last season as the team’s starting left back, will likely reprise that role in Alston’s absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revolution left back Kevin Alston has been diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, and has taken an indefinite leave of absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[343,109,49,1274],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Alston1.png?fit=477%2C264","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18900"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18900"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18903,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18900\/revisions\/18903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}