Dear Friends,

Thank you for reading our blog, after a long holiday absence.  I hope you all had a relaxing holiday with friends and family. The cold dark outdoors forces us to hermit at home, which I believe is good for our bodies and spirits. I know some of our CF friends found themselves hospitalized during Christmas, and I truly felt their disappointment. Involuntary confinement just seems to be a normal part of CF life…

I had the calmest Christmas in many, many years. Ana had a cold so she stayed away from me and the family, as did Trent. So Andrew and I went to my brother’s home in Burlingame to celebrate New Year’s Eve with our newest family member Chloe. She gained weight and was a whopping 6 pounds 2 oz on Christmas. We adults each ate about that weight in ham, mashed potatoes, salad, asparagus, and apple pie! Our Christmas Eve was metaphorically appropriate; after dinner we all sat around adoring and loving this new life, like 2010 years ago, and wondering how her life would unfold and leave a lasting impact. Every baby born healthy is a miracle, and a baby born to two parents, in a warm home to loving family members, and generous friends who provided over 100 baby outfits and baby items is even more of a miracle! Such abundance for this one life- how privileged Chloe is compared to the millions of other babies worldwide.

For the first time ever, I spent Christmas morning at home with Andrew, just two of us, listening to music, opening gifts, and eating homemade cinnamon bread that I made (7 loaves!). It felt right, just to be undistracted and be in the company of the one closest to me, my loving husband.  I needed this calmness. We have a philosophy of simple, non-material, consumable gifts, like gift-certificates or body lotions/soaps, and other practical items.  My best gifts are food, of course!  I got baby stamps and cards with Chloe’s photo on them for my family members, and other gift certificates. We followed Andrew’s family’s traditions and made Mexican dip and homemade pizza and brought them to Ryuta’s home. In usual Stenzel fashion, we went on a short hike while mother and baby stayed home. Then we ate to our hearts content.

The last week was spent preparing to visit Los Angeles to be part of the Donate Life Rose Parade Float. In 2008, I was extremely privileged to ride the float on New Year’s Day. Now, each year I dedicate a rose to my lung donor, Ana’s donor, and other special people who’ve made an impact to us this year, especially for organ donation. On December 29, I drove 5 hours straight like a madwoman, without stopping, to arrive at Pasadena in time to place my rose dedications. I dedicated 6 other roses to friends in Japan who have celebrated transplant awareness and worked so hard on our behalf for our book tour.  I highly recommend that people touched by organ donation become a part of this impressive national organ donation awareness campaign- there’s just nothing else like it.

I’m so in awe of the One Legacy (LA’s OPO) staff who kindly welcomed Ana and me, as well as our film crew, to the 2010 New Life Rises Decorating and Rose Dedication. Being able to spend a few days watching the magic and interacting wonderfully with other recipient and donor families brought back all the emotional highs that I experienced in 2008 as a float rider.  It is just absolutely AMAZING that a small group of OPO staff can pull off such a monumental task of putting on a Donate Life float, every year since 2004.  I witness hundreds of people swarming around the float, gluing, cutting flowers, sweeping, arranging flower bouquets, sprinkling seeds on faces of loved ones, moving scaffolding, cleaning tables, directing people around, and making this whole process run smoothly.  I met old friends from 2008 who are thankfully healthy and strong like Ana and me. I met people from Utah, Pittsburgh, California, Houston, all over the country. We met a 28 year old liver recipient who received a liver 12 years ago from a woman who was 8 months pregnant when she became brain dead: both the recipient and the 12 year old son of the donor sat together on the float on New Year’s Day!  Now that’s a miracle!  Ana and I spoke with Asian media to get the word out. We met volunteers like Gary Foxen, the Navas, donor mom Eva and so many many others who inspire me to keep living as well as I can and keep giving back, even if I feel tired sometimes! I was reminded of the spiritual connections that organ donation invites as I spoke with countless donor families just like mine. I met new donor families, with buttons of photos of their loved ones on their jackets, and struck up raw, tearful, yet warm conversations with these heroic families. I was so touched how through sadness they can find joy and beauty in their floragraphs. We met Reg Green and admired Nicholas’ floragraph; we met a wonderful Middle Eastern family whose son Andrew died and donated his tissues; this family also made a floragraph so the world can remember this hero. I felt so fully alive on Dec 29, 30, 31 and 1st!! As active as I am in organ donation, sometimes I need inspiration and was so grateful for the recharge! 

On New Year’s Eve, the film crew (Nickolas Rossi, Matt Rome, Andrew Byrnes, and Marc Smolowitz) and Ana, Trent and I went to a fabulous Korean BBQ and ate enough food for 20. Just like Japan but this time there was plenty of beef and calories! Then we returned to Nickolas’ spacious loft in downtown Los Angeles for interviews. Around midnight, we went to the rooftop and watched the fireworks all around us. We heard the cheers and music down below at the Iglesias on his block, and I played Auld Lang Syne on my bagpipes! For years, downtown LA reminded me of hospitalizations, smog and airway constriction; and now with healthy donor lungs, I was playing bagpipes!!! What  a special way to celebrate the new year. Ana has lived 10 years with new lungs. A decade ago, we were both sure we wouldn’t see 2010, but here we are!

On New Year’s Day, Ana and I crawled out of bed at 5:30AM while the boys slept, and met the film crew at the Parade. We walked a good 3 miles and pushed our way through the crowds until we finally had the pleasure of standing directly across Colorado Blvd, in front of the Donate Life grandstands. I remember fondly the energy of the screams and swaying arms when I sat on the float in 2008 and watched, and now we could see it all again, from a great vantage point. Ana and I both cried our eyes out as the float passed, because it has so much power – it’s about LIFE, it’s about remembering, it’s about love of people past, present and future. We screamed to the riders on the left side of the float who could not see the commotion on the right side, where the grandstands were. Ana and I were the only Donate Life people on that side and we let them know we supported those float riders (and pitched organ donation to all the spectators around us- in English and Spanish!!!!:)) The Guatemalan guy next to me knew about organ donation, and said it was a good thing. This public awareness charge- it’s all about telling real stories to real people. It was just AWESOME.  Another 40 million people watched the ”New Life Rises” float on television, with the 70+ organ donors floragraphs featured and 24 recipients/donor family members riding on the float that morning. This year’s float design was a phoenix bird rises from ashes- symbolizing new life coming from death. It was beautiful! Check it out at www.donatelifefloat.org.
 
I am so grateful for the Donate Life Rose Parade committee for all they do to save lives like ours. We are forever indebted as are thousands of unnamed recipients, in the US , and abroad. With their help, we hope more people in places like Japan will receive this great gift of deep breathing! I look forward to being part of the Donate Life float, and the film festival, for as long as I am breathing!

After the parade we picked up the boys and head to my parents’ home, as they had returned from Northern California. Mom made an authentic Japanese New Year’s feast for the film crew, called Osechiryori. We enjoyed black beans, mandarin orange jello (agar), burdock/lotus root dish, a carrot/white radish salad, a special sushi rice, salmon, tuna sashimi, roast lamb, lots of fish cake (kamaboko), a chestnut/yam dish, Japanese potatoes, seaweed rolls, and other exotic but delicious goodies. May sound strange to some Americans, but Marc and Nickolas loved the food! My mom is so generous and talented- and not only because she’s Japanese!

Then we head home while Andrew and Trent drove. Ana and I passed out in the back seat. In our delirium, we started to giggle and mess around with each other, cuddling and trying to get comfortable in the car. We examined each other’s wrinkles and insulted each other with more giggles, using our twin language we haven’t shared in a long time because our interaction in the last month was consumed by stressed out bickering Japan-tour preparation. We’re almost 38 years old and when we’re together it’s like we’re 3 again.

Now we are home, catching up on emails and wondering what 2010 has in store for us. All Ana and I care about is staying healthy. Everything else will fall into place. In 2010, my parents turn 70, my brother turns 40, Ana and my brother will get married; we will go to the Transplant Games in late July and we hope to produce The Power of Two documentary film! Much going on, but I still welcome whatever comes, with anticipation and gratitude. I know I’m meet some remarkable people, and perhaps say goodbye to some as well. Some friends are moving, others face all kinds of change this year. That is life.

Anyway, thanks for reading this long post. I wish you all warmth, health, and joy as January unfolds. I hope you can activate “New Life Rising” in your own way. Thank you for your friendship and love,

Shinnen akemashite omedetou! Happy New Year!

Isabel Stenzel Byrnes

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