California Transplant Donor Network
If you are watching Sunday’s Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, the event in which people, swim, bike and run, there are several people participating with a new leases on life.
World Team Transplant are among the 2,000 people expected in San Francisco for nearly three decades old event that includes a 1.5 mile swim through the chilly, choppy waters of the bay to short, followed by an 18-mile bike race, and a 8-mile run through the Golden Gate Recreation Area.
Among the scheduled members of the World Transplant Team are: Swimmer Ray A. Velasco; Cyclist Randall Scott Stafford and swimmer Stephen Fratus.
Ray has been taking on challenges like this for years. In 1993, he also became a kidney transplant recipient. He received his kidney from his younger sister. At the time doctors transplanted her kidney into him – he said his kidney was operating at 12 percent capacity.
Thought he’d lived with kidneys not working so well for years, he was active in open water swimming, tackling challenges like frigid waters of Donner Lake in the California Sierras. He’s also swum in San Francisco Bay on various challenges.
The Alameda native does admit he had to “work my way back” after his transplant when the rigors of that left him at 135 pounds.
Fratus received a new liver in 1996. Like Ray, he’s been busy since. He’s climbed Mount Shasta three times and “did (Mt.) Whitney last year.” For practice for Sunday, he dipped into the Bay last week and then “changed into my tennis shoes and ran seven miles.”
Hoping he “isn’t the last guy” in the race on Sunday, he’s also straightforward when it comes to his transplant and it’s impact on what he does. “I just don’t let get in the way of life.”
Discovering he had only one kidney after a job physical, in 1984 Dr. Stafford received a kidney from his younger brother, Derek. When this transplant finally failed in 2005, his wife, Deirdre, stepped up to donate one of her kidneys. Ever since his first transplant, Stafford has competed in the national and international Transplant Games.
The physician and professor at Stanford has been on a bike almost all his life. The 52-year-old grew up in Palo Alto. After transplant number 1, he hit the bike hard and then kept it up after the rigors of transplant number two.
“ I feel that I need to take care of myself and make the most of the extra time I've been given because of my two transplants,” he said.
World Team Transplant are among the 2,000 people expected in San Francisco for nearly three decades old event that includes a 1.5 mile swim through the chilly, choppy waters of the bay to short, followed by an 18-mile bike race, and a 8-mile run through the Golden Gate Recreation Area.
Among the scheduled members of the World Transplant Team are: Swimmer Ray A. Velasco; Cyclist Randall Scott Stafford and swimmer Stephen Fratus.
Ray has been taking on challenges like this for years. In 1993, he also became a kidney transplant recipient. He received his kidney from his younger sister. At the time doctors transplanted her kidney into him – he said his kidney was operating at 12 percent capacity.
Thought he’d lived with kidneys not working so well for years, he was active in open water swimming, tackling challenges like frigid waters of Donner Lake in the California Sierras. He’s also swum in San Francisco Bay on various challenges.
The Alameda native does admit he had to “work my way back” after his transplant when the rigors of that left him at 135 pounds.
Fratus received a new liver in 1996. Like Ray, he’s been busy since. He’s climbed Mount Shasta three times and “did (Mt.) Whitney last year.” For practice for Sunday, he dipped into the Bay last week and then “changed into my tennis shoes and ran seven miles.”
Hoping he “isn’t the last guy” in the race on Sunday, he’s also straightforward when it comes to his transplant and it’s impact on what he does. “I just don’t let get in the way of life.”
Discovering he had only one kidney after a job physical, in 1984 Dr. Stafford received a kidney from his younger brother, Derek. When this transplant finally failed in 2005, his wife, Deirdre, stepped up to donate one of her kidneys. Ever since his first transplant, Stafford has competed in the national and international Transplant Games.
The physician and professor at Stanford has been on a bike almost all his life. The 52-year-old grew up in Palo Alto. After transplant number 1, he hit the bike hard and then kept it up after the rigors of transplant number two.
“ I feel that I need to take care of myself and make the most of the extra time I've been given because of my two transplants,” he said.
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