Spotlight: Bill Klahn

Transplant Olympian Receives the Gift of Life

While some groggily hit the snooze button on their alarms at 7:00 a.m., 56-year-old Bill Klahn has already been in the gym for an hour and a half.

Bill works part time at North Dodge Athletic Club in Iowa City as a personal trainer and swim instructor, but he uses the early mornings to get his workouts out of the way.

I met him there one morning to watch him work out and talk about his routine.

Alone in the indoor pool with no one to keep him company but the colorful fish and dolphin murals on the walls, Bill swims the breaststroke for an easy hour and a half. He glides silently beneath the cool, blue water with ease as the graceful ripples made by his gentle, yet forceful kicks follow closely behind. After smooth, strong strokes, he comes up for air and the familiar morning silence of the empty pool.

This is his favorite part of the day, and the reason why he is so sprightly in the mornings. For in the water, he doesn’t have to worry about his next blood test or the fistful of pills he takes daily to survive.

In 2002, when he could no longer lace up his work boots because his feet were so swollen, Bill went to a doctor. They did countless tests and pricked him with needles. Then they gave him the news – end stage liver disease.

By spring of 2005, he learned he was dying of liver cancer; he had three large tumors on both lobes of his liver. He didn’t have long to live, and because of the severity of his condition, his name was placed on the top of the national transplant list.

Most of his memories from this period in his life are a blur, but he remembers riding home from the doctor’s office with his brother Marv in nervous silence. He also remembers lying in bed that night fearing for his life and silently asking, “Why don’t I die? It’d be so much easier.”

Prior to his sickness, Bill had been an athlete. He was a triathlete, competitive swimmer, mountain biker, scuba diver and climber. By age 40, he had climbed Grand Teton. His grave prognosis shocked him to his core. It would have been easy (and perfectly understandable) for him to have stayed in bed and nurse his illness.

Instead of fermenting in his misfortune, he took to the gym. Being one who “get[s] bored easily,” Bill refused to let his disease get in the way of staying fit. On days when his body permitted, he headed to the pool and attacked the water as if he were attacking the cancer in his body.

“Exercising is what kept me sane and that’s why I did it with a vengeance,” Bill told me. “Exercise helps me as much, if not more, mentally than physically. If I don’t work out, I get depressed.”

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