Local Family Battles Rare Syndrome Together

By Melissa McCrady

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BROWN DEER - Smiling, laughing and loving is what the Theine family does best, even during difficult times like this. Deb Theine, who has Marfan syndrome, will undergo a serious kind of heart surgery Monday morning. "We sit around, we joke around, we talk and there's lots of teasing," Deb Theine said giggling. "Yeah I'm nervous, I won't deny that." Deb and her four sons have Marfan syndrome. It causes them to have life-threatening aneurysms. "Our aneurysms are twice the size of normal," Deb said. Her husband, Daniel, is the only one without the syndrome. "If I could sit there and trade places with any of them, I would," Daniel Theine said. "The hardest part through all of this is the day of surgery. That's a very, very difficult day," Deb said. Deb Theine isn't the first or the last person in her family to have the surgery. Her sons Paul and Mark already had it while Mike and Kyle eventually will. "We're all gonna be here to support everybody when it's their turn for surgery," Kyle Theine said. "I guess it's easier to go through it with everybody. It's not just me singled out, or Mark singled out. It's all of us together and that's helped because we can really lean on each other," Paul Theine said.