ARTICLE 1:   FIT TO GIVE  

CHERYL ROSENTHAL NOW TRIM ENOUGH TO DONATE A KIDNEY TO HER AILING FATHER: By Kim Lamb Gregory  

Ventura Star Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Love and sweat have slimmed down Cheryl Rosenthal to the point where she can help to save her dad’s life.

The Westlake Village woman had to lose 40 pounds before she could donate a kidney to her father.  Now 37 pounds lighter, Rosenthal has finally gotten her doctor’s clearance to go ahead with the transplant operation to help her father, Les Rosenthal, 65.

For the past six months, Cheryl, 31, has been sticking to a 1,200 calorie-a-day, low-carbohydrate, high protein diet and showing up faithfully, six days a week, at the Body Focus Gym in Thousand Oaks.  There, Westlake Village Fitness Trainer, Geri Arnais, has been coaching her through a workout routine that includes 45 minutes of cardiovascular training four days a week and weight training three days a week.  

Arnais, who is accustomed to dealing with clients motivated by a smaller dress size or high cholesterol, was both impressed and concerned with the pressure Cheryl was putting on herself.  She also realized that Cheryl’s immediate weight-loss reward would be surgery.   

“My biggest worry from day one was the stress factor,” Arnais said.  “She had to lose all of this fat to get herself in shape to go under the knife.”

There were times when Cheryl was tempted to skip the workout ––especially considering the 120-mile round trip weekday commute she makes to the Torrance kindergarten where she teaches, but she knew her dad’s quality of life depended on it.

 “Because of why I was doing it made it easier to get there,” Cheryl said.  

For six months, Les has been undergoing thrice weekly 3 ½ hour dialysis sessions at the UCLA Medical Center.  The trouble with his kidneys has plagued him for most of his life; he says he has passed more than 400 painful kidney stones.  His kidneys first went into total failure in 1996 as the result of complications from hypertension.  In 1997, he received a kidney from a cadaver, which gave him four healthy years.  

“Basically, it was the best four years of my life,” he said.  When the transplanted kidney failed in August 2002, all three of his adult children immediately volunteered to undergo a series of tests to determine if their tissue and blood types was a match.  Only Cheryl proved to be a compatible donor, but there was a hitch.  She as carrying too much weight to safely undergo a transplant operation.

Despite Les’ discomfort, neither he nor his wife, Roberta, wanted their youngest daughter to feel pressured to donate a kidney.  “I said, ‘We won’t think any more or less of you if you don’t’,” Roberta, said.

But Cheryl, was determined.  “It’s my dad,” she said, when asked why she was willing to work so hard to sacrifice a kidney.  When he considers the gift his daughter is working so hard to give him, Les’ voice often chokes with emotion.

“You don’t love any of your kids any differently, but she is a little special”, he said in December during an interview with the Star.   

On Feb. 7, after months of protein shakes and hours of mind-numbing repetitions on the weight machines, Cheryl traveled to UCLA Medical Center for one of her periodic visits to her doctor.  She had become accustomed to frustration ––her weight had plateaued several times –– but she had finally lost 37 pounds and more than 20 inches.  She hoped it would be enough for her doctor to give her the green light for the transplant.

“I thought, if she tells me “no”, I’m going to knock her out,” Cheryl said.  Instead, the doctor raved.  “It was so awesome,” Cheryl remembered.  “(My doctor) was like, ‘Ohmigod! I can’t believe how much weight you’ve lost!’ ”

Her doctor gave her the go-ahead for the transplant, but Cheryl’s body suddenly rebelled, seeming to launch its own protest against the exhausting schedule she had demanded of herself for six months.  The day after her doctor’s visit, Cheryl contracted a raging case of bronchitis that kept her from exercising for nearly a month.

“It was like my body just kind of shut down,” Cheryl said.  But both she and her dad are feeling much better, and it now looks as if the surgery will take place sometime in April.  Cheryl, who just resumed her exercise schedule over the weekend, is more than ready.  “I’m like, let’s get it over with,” Cheryl said.

Back in her bigger days, Cheryl Rosenthal of Westlake Village wore these jeans.  Now, two to two-and-a-half sizes later, she is ready to undergo kidney-donation surgery.

“It’s my dad,” Cheryl Rosenthal says of her decision to donate to her father, Les, who already has undergone one transplant, which gave him four healthy years.  He’s been on thrice-weekly dialysis for the past six months.