While most Olympians run the risk of being stripped of their titles if caught using steroids, athletes such as Bill Klahn would be unable to compete without them.

His Iowa City apartment is cluttered with swimming caps, workout gear, healthy food, medals, seven bottles of steroids, and the drugs used to suppress their side effects.

The 56-year-old swimmer just returned from the 17th World Transplant Games in Australia, where he won silver medals in the 50-meter breast stroke, the 100-meter free style, and the 200-meter medley relay, helping the United States finish third overall.

“Everyone worked really hard to get there,” he said. “It wasn’t about winning medals, it was about life.”

This international competition is hosted every other year for transplant patients of all ages. The 2009 games hosted around 1,000 athletes from 51 countries. Klahn is currently a U.S. champion and record holder for his age group (50-59) in the 50-meter breast-stroke.

But swimming is not his only activity. He has participated in triathlons, scuba diving, mountain climbing, white water rafting, basketball, running, and daily weight lifting.

His body had always faced strenuous activity, but nothing compared to what it faced in 2005. That year, Klahn said he noticed his feet and legs swelling and at first blamed his ripe age of 52.

But he knew something was seriously wrong when he began resembling the “Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“He was pretty deviated, but that’s obvious,” brother Marv Klahn said, and his brother broke down upon receiving the news. “He was also confused, so I was asking the questions because he was pretty incapable of doing that at that moment.”

Once he dried his tears, Bill Klahn said the first thing he did was hit the gym. He noted he was too fatigued to walk or stand, but he could swim because of the water’s buoyancy.

“I went to the gym every day like I had always been doing,” he said. “I figured, ‘I’m going to get in the best shape I can because I can’t control the cancer, but I can control me.’ ”

Fortunately, an organ became available, and he had surgery in June 2005 at the UI Hospitals and Clinics. The liver he received, as later found out, belonged to a 23-year-old mother of three who died of a brain disease. Two years after the transplant, Klahn contacted the donor’s mother.

“It was really hard for me to meet her mother because I was consumed with guilt,” Klahn said as tears welled in his eyes. “I was alive, and her daughter was dead. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, but now she is my second mom. I call her on Mother’s Day.”

On his computer, Klahn keeps pictures of his “second mom” presenting him with medals after a swim meet. After choking back tears, he noted that he gave them right back to her and asked her to keep them for his donor’s three children.

But it took time after the surgery before Klahn began winning medals again. His 200-pound weight-lifting sessions had diminished into a 70-pound struggle, and he couldn’t swim more than eight lengths of the pool. He noted that having the Olympics in mind kept him focused on the goal of competing again someday.

“There are almost 1,000 people there competing that wouldn’t be alive without a life-saving organ,” Klahn said.