Every sports fan knows an elite athlete whom they admire — someone who plays through pain and injury, who sacrifices for the team or pushes themselves toward a given goal. Two months ago, even those who don’t follow golf had to respect and commend Tiger Woods for his other-worldly victory at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, gutting it out on a bum leg, which featured multiple stress fractures and a torn ACL. More recently in Beijing, 41-year-old U.S. swimmer Dara Torres defied the odds in a sport where youth reigns supreme by winning three silver medals in her fifth Olympic Games.
Compare those feats to an athlete who returned from a life-threatening kidney transplant or a double-lung transplant or multiple heart transplants like some of the 1,300 athletes who recently competed at the National Kidney Foundation's 2008 Transplant Games.
You may never have heard of Jen Searl, who grew up in Groveland, graduated from Pentucket Regional High School and now lives in Peabody, but she is one of the many compelling athletes who participated in July in Pittsburgh, Pa., winning four gold medals, two in track races (the 5K and 1,500 meters), and two in swimming races (the 500-meter freestyle and 50-meter breaststroke), a silver in the 50-meter backstroke and a bronze in the 4x100 track relay. As an added bonus, she was named the games' Outstanding Female Athlete, earning her an all-expenses paid trip to the World Transplant Games in Australia next August.
The recipient of a kidney transplant from her father at age 13, she later became the first patient ever to receive a double bone marrow transplant in 2002 from her mother. The operation transferred both the bone marrow and kidney from donor to recipient. Searl considers herself lucky in comparison to the hundreds of athletes she has met at the Transplant Games.
"You realize how lucky you are when you see everyone together, and I was extremely fortunate that I never had to be on a list because my dad was a match the first time, and both my mom and sister matched the second go-around," Searl explained.
"I'm just a kidney transplant. At the games I met one girl that had a heart and double-lung transplant before the age of 5," she said. "They also give out an award for courage at the games, and this year's recipient had three heart transplants and was still doing things for organ transplants. I realize that in the broad transplant world I am really lucky."
In addition to the many courageous athletes who attend and compete in sports ranging from track for the healthier participants to bowling and table tennis for the more physically disabled competitors, the bi-yearly event is also host to a special group that are also honored at every opening ceremony. You might call them the guests of honor.
"During the opening ceremony, every state walks in with their athletes. At the end are all the donors and donor families, those living people who have given organs to loved ones like my mother," said Searl of the tear-filled event. "It's powerful, the relationships; these people come and watch, and because of the gift they have given they can see what their recipients can do. Some are very athletic.
"It's also common that an athlete that wins a medal will present that medal to the family from whom they received an organ," said Searl of the event that shows what transplants can do for people like her. "It's very moving and emotional."
Once nearly unable to walk from the lengthy list of medications that kept her body from rejecting her initial kidney transplant, Searl now has the strength to complete a rigorous six-day-a-week workout that includes three runs, one bike workout, two weight-training sessions and three abdominal workouts. What started as kick-boxing class and workout DVDs at home a year after her second surgery slowly evolved into the more strenuous fitness program she does today.
"I started working out with little things — machines at the gym, kick-boxing, step aerobics, but to me running was the epitome of health," Searl said. "The Feaster Five in North Andover, it was the year that Matt Damon was running, and that was just the motivation I needed."
And because she was the first of an experimental procedure that has held up to date, Searl does not want to take her health and recent athletic endurance for granted.
"It's the reason I do it (train and travel to the Transplant Games). I don't want to take it for granted because I don't know how long this will last, and I don't want to have any regrets where I said, 'I should've done this or I should have done that,'" said Searl. "I would imagine this is what a normal person feels like because I don't remember feeling healthy.
"It's always lurking in the back of your head (that you could relapse), but you never know. At this point everything is OK," Searl emphasized six years after her procedure. "It just shows how promising this procedure is and hopefully they can do some more."
