Article appeared on Sept. 12, 2011 on the Peninsula Press
Cystic fibrosis patients and twin sisters Anabel Stenzel and Isabel Stenzel Byrnes blow bubbles to honor the lung donors who gave them both a second life. (Photo courtesy of "The Power of Two")
There have been many days over the last four decades when twin sisters Anabel Stenzel and Isabel Stenzel Byrnes, 39, wondered if they would ever set foot outside the hospital again. They were born with cystic fibrosis, a disease that causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs and eventually leads to lung failure.
But Saturday night, at San Francisco’s nearly sold-out Castro Theatre, the Redwood City twins took center stage for a standing ovation. It was the Bay Area premiere of “The Power of Two,” a documentary about their lives, their double-lung transplants at Stanford and their crusade to encourage organ donation in the United States and abroad.
“The film is about Ana and Isa’s journey from patients to advocates,” said the film’s director Marc Smolowitz, of San Francisco. He decided to make the documentary after reading Ana and Isa’s autobiography.
“I fell in love with Ana and Isa as people and subjects. When I met them, that just sealed the deal for me,” Smolowitz said.
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