Photo by Joshua BoroughShawn Stockwell, 10, kisses his 8-week-old kitten named Lucifer, who goes by Lucy for short.
By Amy Schenck
Alaska StarIf you walked into the Stockwells’ home on a recent Friday night - and didn’t know any better - you’d describe their life with adjectives like typical and normal. Mom Trista was exhausted from a long week. Dad George got home from work just after 6 p.m. Kids Shawn, 10, and Haley, 6, ran around the house, shrieking and giggling as they played with a new kitten. Teenage daughters Sam, 13, and Amanda, 16, were off scampering around Eagle River with friends.
“It’s nice to be back to worrying about Ds on report cards,” Trista said.
Last July Shawn received a heart transplant at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. - a lifesaving procedure that came just in the nick of time.
Shawn was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which meant he was missing the left side of his heart. When he was first listed for a new heart, doctors gave Shawn eight months to live; it ended up taking more than two years to find him the right match.
“We barely survived it,” Trista said.
Two days before Christmas Shawn and his family arrived home to Alaska, showered by tears and hugs from the entourage of family and friends who met them at the airport.
It had been two years, eight months and nine days since Shawn, Trista, Haley and Amanda had seen the Chugach Mountains, rooted for the Aces hockey team or slept in their own beds.
At any given time Shawn couldn’t be more than two hours away from his California hospital because “the call” could come at literally any moment.
George and Sam lived in Eagle River, caring for the house and pets, while the rest of the family was away. George earned the family’s sole income, working as a foreman for a roofing company.
Trista described the family’s first week back home as “euphoria.”
Everywhere, it seemed, people greeted them and welcomed them home.
But then reality started to set in. Trista had to re-learn the little things, like how to navigate Anchorage’s road system - a place she’s lived since she was 13 years old - and how to use the new TV.
Their home seemed to have Goldilock’s touch. While the family was away, George launched into a painting project as a way to keep himself occupied, and Trista isn’t quite sure where all their framed photos or many other things, like her collectables, ended up.
George said it was hard when the family first moved back in together.
“It’s like being single and then getting married,” he said.
Also, the couple, for the first time in years, had time to grapple with how the whole experience has affected them.
Everything sort of crashed in on her, Trista said. Doctors diagnosed it as acute stress syndrome.
“Very few parents stand in the room while their child codes. Usually the doctors will see it coming and they’ll usher them out,” Trista said. “George and I stood and watched everything happen around us.”
Giggles and goofy grinsThis time last year the Stockwells were just barely hanging on. Instead of planning for the future, they talked about Shawn’s funeral. At night they listened to parents wail inside the 47-unit Ronald McDonald House where they lived.
They knew that even if Shawn’s heart didn’t fail, another illness called protein losing enteropathy after fontan, which causes the body to stop processing protein, would eventually kill Shawn. (The heart transplant also reversed this condition.)
“I think everyday of those mornings I almost lost Shawn,” Trista said, while sitting cross-legged on the sofa.
Her words mingled with Shawn and Haley’s light-hearted giggles, as the pair played with their 8-week-old kitten named Luicfer - Lucy for short - and gobbled up jellybeans.
Haley pranced around in pink polk-a-dot pajamas - her choice attire for pajama day at Alpenglow Elementary School, where she recently started kindergarten.
Shawn wore a manly dark red “Stanford” T-shirt, which covered a swollen belly and thick shoulders - water weight caused by one of his 23 medications.
“He’s ready to look like himself again,” Trista said, as she held up Shawn’s toes, marveling at the fact that they’re no longer blue and clubbed.
If Shawn’s upcoming biopsies go well, doctors will change his medications and he’ll return to his normal weight.
Above the mantel a family photo showed the Stockwell kids and their cousins neatly arranged for a studio portrait. Except instead of angelic smiles and stately postures, the kids cried, pulled each other’s hair or displayed goofy grins - a portrait of pure and genuine chaos.
Trista chose to enlarge and frame the photo because it shows life the way it is, she laughed.
A Corvette engine
When Trista talked about the night of Shawn’s heart transplant tears softened her cheeks and eyelashes. At first she felt overjoyed, she said. When she called George the night of July 31, 2008, she didn’t even have to tell him the good news; he knew by the tone of her voice that Shawn’s chance at a new life had arrived.
Two hours later George was on a plane from Alaska to California, while Trista spent what could have been her final hours with her son.
“When I had to say goodbye to him, I remember feeling almost separated from myself because I hurt so bad,” Trista said.
When the time came, Trista left Shawn to begin a nerve-racking wait.
Shawn’s heart arrived via Learjet, and then helicopter.
“When they told us Shawn’s heart was actually being wheeled down the hallway it was unbelievable because - we had stopped planning Shawn’s future - it was like Shawn being able to drive, Shawn being able to date just walked in the hallway,” Trista said.
In the following hours and days Trista lived on adrenaline; she didn’t eat or sleep for 62 hours. She anxiously waited for a glimpse of Shawn as he was wheeled into an intensive care unit and begged nurses to go in and check to see how things were going.
Initially, the news was great: when surgeons put the new heart in Shawn it immediately started to pump. But then Shawn’s body began to reject the heart.
“There were a number of complications because his poor sick little body wasn’t ready for this Corvette engine that was just installed in this Miata,” Trista said.
After the transplant Trista remembers sitting by Shawn, starring at his lips in awe because they were no longer blue.
Shawn woke up, looked at his mom and asked through hand motions if he had a new heart.
“You’re new heart, in you,” Trista said, as she drew a heart through the air with her index fingers and then pointed at Shawn.
One day at a timeAs normalcy inches back into the Stockwells’ home, memories of their ordeal sometimes crop up in unexpected ways. When a kid at school has a headache or feels nauseated, Haley asks them if they have a brain tumor or cancer because that’s the world she grew up in, Trista said.
Shawn and Trista spend their time going to doctor appointments and rooting for their favorite football and hockey players. Shawn is also preparing to return to school next fall, and dreams of the day he can play sports - for the first time in his life.
Trista said making plans is still difficult. Their schedule is completely dependant on when doctors can see Shawn for follow-up appointments, and she’s also out of practice “because we didn’t plan on anything for so long, ever,” she said.
The Stockwells hope people will start to drop by for a visit. Trista said she feels a bit isolated because her friendships were put on the backburner while she was in California.
This is not to say the family doesn’t feel the community’s support, Trista added.
“I was there for so long and I never heard of anybody’s hometown doing what our hometown did,” she said. “We didn’t get to express our gratitude enough because we were so absorbed in Shawn everyday.”
A welcome home party for Shawn and the rest of the Stockwells will be at 5:30 p.m. May 20 at the Lion’s Club. It will include a silent and live auction to benefit the family. Contact Diane Mucha at 696-3065 to volunteer or make a donation.
Labels: Alaska Star, Amy, articles, News, newspaper, photos, Stockwell, story
The Zipmiester
Mike and a headless Ed
What a view
Zippy and his favorite pastime ... chewing sticks
Part of the crew
A tributary
Eklutna Lake ... we ran along the north shore
Karen
The view from inside Serenty Falls Hut
Janet and Beryl
Photo courtesy of Jane 
A few months ago I got it into my mind that I wanted to run ... Yes, I've always been a runner, but I decided I wanted to do it everyday and train for some longer distances ... This decision coincided with Zippy's appearance in my life ... so I've not only had motivation, but also someone to hold me accountable.
Photo by Joshua Borough
