‘With death hovering, Stenzel sisters make plans for living’

From the San Jose Mercury News, a feature about sisters Isabel Stenzel Byrnes and Anabel Stenzel, whose new book is “The Power of Two: A Twin Triumph over Cystic Fibrosis.”

When the identical twins were diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1972, they weren’t expected to live past age 10. But scientific breakthroughs progressed as they did, allowing them – with the help of medicine, transplants and each other – to earn master’s degrees, hike mountains and write a book.

… Having both brushed against death — Byrnes did die once when her heart stopped; she was resuscitated and then received new lungs — both sisters talk comfortably about living and dying. Their book touches on all that — along with growing up with Japanese and German parents, the rigors of a chronic illness, and the gratitude and guilt that washed over them after meeting the families of their organ donors.

It’s also the story of twins whose bond — the same parents, same dark hair, the same defective gene — helped prolong their lives … They roomed together during their undergrad years at Stanford, and again for master’s degrees at the University of California-Berkeley. They traveled to Japan to teach English. Even today, they live only four miles apart in Redwood City and talk at least once a day by phone.

See also the San Mateo [CA] County Journal: Living, breathing miracles.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under books, cystic fibrosis, first-person, personal stories, success stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.