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Matter of the Heart Ten years later, families united by life-saving heart-transplant surgery return to the Carlsbad Marathon to raise awareness for organ donation. At age 12, a scary-smart kid from Encinitas, California, named Chris Truxaw took a lap around the school yard with his classmates. As harmless activities go, this was especially banal, given that chris was a basketball player, a runner, an all-around active kid. Yes, he had had a few weird twinges in his chest, but hi parents had gone to the trouble of subjecting him to a cardiac stress test, which he passed. What Chris and his family didn’t know was that he shouldn’t have passed that test, not with a diseased heart winding down inside of him like a cheap clock. Part-way through his gym class jog, Chris collapsed without warning, a 12-year-old suffering a major hear incident. Before anyone noticed, he was down, not breathing and without a pulse. That was over 10 years ago. Ten years—and about 340 million heartbeats. That’s how many heartbeats that Chris Truxaw has gotten from another heart, not his. Chris’ 340 million borrowed heartbeats echo in his chest courtesy of Tommy Weiss. Tommy Weiss, who died at age 10 in June of 1997, just months after Chris Truxaw flat-lined on a school yard. Tommy Weiss, who gave his heart so that Chris could live.
The Gym Coach But Chris’ heart was fragile, at best. "He was in a coma for two weeks, but he pulled out of it,” recalls his father, Tim. “Chris was suffering from hypertrophic cardiac myopathy. His heart walls grew too thick, and eventually it was going to give out. They put in a pacemaker and an internal defibrillator, but it just got worse day by day.” Tim, a lawyer, cyclist and marathoner, and his wife, Liz, put Chris on a transplant recipient waiting list that might present a life-saving transplant in nine months. Chris didn’t have that long. “When he ate a meal, his lips got blue from the effort,” says Time. “After three months, he weighed only 75 pounds and our lives were focused on keeping him alive.” The
Mother "He never regained consciousness,” says Telles, an Aliso Viejo resident. He was riding in a car with his best friend and his best friend’s mother, who both suffered non-life-threatening injuries. “They had airbags, Tommy didn’t,” adds Telles. He lasted for six days in a coma but would never recover. The clinical term is “brain dead,” but how resonant is that to a mourning mother? How do you make the decision she had to make when her son was in a hospital bed, lying still and yet strangely unmarked by the accident? Donna’s tragedy was about to become, through the most tenuous of connections and one agonizing decision, Chris Truxaw’s salvation. The
Grandfathers But Joseph Telles, Tommy’s grandfather, had indeed learned of Chris’ desperate need for a heart. Chris’ grandfather had a relative in Whittier, who had a neighbor of 40 years whose great-nephew had been in a terrible car crash. Distant points on a map of Southern California suddenly connected, and Donna Telles had a decision to make. "I talked about it with Tommy’s dad,” says Telles, “And we turned it around: Would we have wanted the chance if the situation was reversed? We knew it was right; we’d just have to deal with it. So we said okay.” The
Surgery
The Man For those of you who saw, “It’s a Wonderful Life” over the holidays, consider a world without Chris Truxaw. Stanford would be shy one graduate, and 20,000 users wouldn’t have a software program he developed and commercialized while still in high school. GreenVolts would have his help developing cutting-edge solar power and countless families wouldn’t have their loved ones because Chris wouldn’t be around to give motivational speeches about organ donation. Chris isn’t a firebrand, but he is a remarkable 23-year-old. At Stanford, he developed a prototype for a revolutionary trekking pole. The income he makes from his software project makes for a prolonged silence when asked if he really needs to work. "I want to work,” he says, “I enjoy new challenges, the chance to apply my skills and help mankind. I think we’re changing power production as we currently see it worldwide.” He’s climbed Half Dome and run the Bay to Breakers. He skis, surfs occasionally and plays golf. He also walks to work every day from his North Beach apartment in downtown San Francisco to his office South of Market—because that’s what you do when you’ve been given an adult life and are trying to spend it saving the world. The
Families "Donna and her husband are part of our family,” says Chris. “The two families are very much integrated; we go to each others’ wedding and graduations. She is very much like my own mother, and I hold her in such high regard.” The feeling is mutual. "Knowing Chris now, I can’t imagine a better recipient for Tommy’s heart,” says Donna Telles. “Christopher is such an amazing person—I couldn’t have been more blessed to have that person have Tommy’s heart.” The amity took a while to develop. Chris, after all, was just a kid, and Donna a distraught mother. Chris spent several months recovering, and his immune system was weak. He had to stay home a lot, but went back to school in the fall, which is when the hospital asked the Truxaws to mentor families waiting for transplants. "We jumped at it,” says Tim Truxaw, “We wanted to give something back.” They felt obligated because, as a nurse pointed out to the Truxaw’s at Tommy’s funeral, “You’re the exception, rather than the rule.” The
Plan But it wasn’t a random collection of runners. Coach Mark Weinstein was there. So were the paramedics, the hospital nurses and the transplant surgery staff—along with the Truxaws, the Weises, and the Tellesses. They all did their part, then walked with Chris from the Mile 25 marker to the end. This month, Chris is returning to the San Diego Marathon (now called the Carlsbad Marathon) on January 20 and wants to do it at least 13.1 miles. Maybe he’ll run a bit, or walk most of it. "My mom’s doing it,” he says, “As well as my donor mom.” They’ll be joined by a congregation of those who have been touched by Donna Telles and Chris Truxaw, whose life was saved—and blessed—by the most wrenching act of selflessness. "I feel the connection every time I see Chris,” says Donna. “That’s Tommy’s heart beating in there. The first time I met Chris, his dad said, ‘I don’t know how to ask you this, but do you want to listen to Tommy’s heart beat?’” "So I put my hand on Chris’ chest and listened to his heart. It was really…just like it happened yesterday. It was a familiar sound. It was Tommy’s heart.”
For more about the Carlsbad Marathon, go to www.carlsbadmarathon.com.
For more about organ donation, go to the Web site for Lifesharing,
one of the official charities for the marathon, at www.lifesharing.org.
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