2000 U.S. Transplant Games Profiles
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Athlete and Donor Family Biographies

Children and Teens 18 and Under

When nine-year-old Sara Castro was still a seven-month fetus, tests revealed her heart rate was just 60, half the normal rate of 120. Her chances for survival grew slimmer as she neared birth. Her heart was so defective that her parents were asked to choose whether to simply take her home and let her die peacefully after birth, get complicated surgery that would prolong her life but never solve the problem, or get a heart transplant - a procedure with no guarantees, but about an 80 percent rate of success. Her parents went for the transplant, and doctors bought time for her by implanting a pacemaker for a few weeks. After one "blue-episode" at age three weeks, she received the heart of a baby boy who had died at age two days. Now Sara and her mom Mona celebrate two birthdays every year, five weeks apart. Sara, one of two children's division athletes on Team Southern California, will compete in bumper bowling and team bowling.

Maia Thayer, 10, celebrated her 9th anniversary recently. When she was born, none of her doctors expected she would live nearly so long. When she was four months old, Maia went into irreversible kidney failure. Her parents were asked to choose between putting her on dialysis or "letting nature take its course." They chose life and kept her alive with nightly dialysis treatments at home and feeding Maia through a tube. At nine months, she weighed just 10 pounds and it was clear she would die without a kidney transplant. Even with a transplant, doctors said her chances for survival were about 1 percent.

Four days after her first birthday, Maia got her transplant. She has not only survived the operation, but also thrived. Now she's an active fourth-grader who loves the usual high points of a 10-year-old's life - Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards. This will be Maia's third Transplant Games. She will compete in the children's division bumper bowling, softball throw, long jump and the 50- and 100-meter dashes for youngsters.

Christopher Truxaw's, 16, great aunt and great uncle of the young man whose heart he would get, were neighbors in northern San Diego County for more than 40 years. There was almost a sense of family when he received the heart of 10-year-old Tommy Weiss in 1997, after Tommy was killed in a car accident. The transplant was a direct result of an over-the-back-fence conversation between the longtime Whittier neighbors, who spoke of their family tragedies while Tommy lay in a coma that would eventually leave him brain-dead. Now Christopher, who was diagnosed at 12 with idiopathic cardiomyopathy, a chronic disease of the heart muscle and sometimes collapsed in his school gym classes, runs marathons and plays golf.

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