Other Resources
Family Ties
Anabel & Isabel Stenzel, 33
Redwood City , California
At the age of 29, Anabel Stenzel took her first deep breath, ran her first sprint and blew out all the candles on her birthday cake. After a life-long battle with cystic fibrosis, Ana, a genetic counselor at Stanford Medical School, underwent transplant surgery in 2000 and became free of the coughing, shortness of breath and congestion associated with CF. But Ana's story was bittersweet. While she was able to glide underwater across a swimming pool and sprint up steps, her identical twin sister, Isabel, a social worker who also had CF, still suffered from the symptoms. These sisters, who together had shared a bedroom, hospital stays and the difficult CF treatments for all their lives, were suddenly in …..entirely different worlds.
After her transplant, Ana attended the 2002 U.S. Transplant Games, where she competed in the track and field competitions. She climbed Half Dome in Yosemite and backpacked 20 miles on weekends. Although she cherished each and every day with her new lungs, the greatest gift they provided was the ability to live long enough to see her twin wake up in ICU with pink lips, following her successful lung transplant in February 2004. The sisters both competed at the National Kidney Foundation 2004 U.S. Transplant Games in Minneapolis where Ana and Isabel took home three medals in track and field and volleyball events. This week, both will be competing in the swimming and track and field events at the 2006 Transplant Games in Louisville, hoping to bring home more medals.
