PLAYING THROUGH THE PAIN TWO YOUNG HEART PATIENTS LEAVE PROBLEMS BEHIND AND GO OFF TO CAMP.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Mario Coletti, age 10, is outgoing, friendly and fearless. Dylan Beekman, 10, is quieter, more reserved.

Mario is into full-contact karate. Dylan plays guitar and collects rocks and sea shells.

Both boys are artistic. Both play Nintendo.

``He's pretty funny, and I enjoy playing with him,'' Dylan says of Mario. ``He's pretty much my best friend.''

``I think we're kind of opposites,'' returns Mario. ``But it's the similar things that are what really make us friends.''

Best friends, in fact, even though they see each other only a couple times a year. Mario lives in Camarillo, Dylan in Mesa, Ariz.

Both boys were born with transposition of the great vessels - heart defects that would require several surgeries. Their families met when Dylan and Mario, then ages 4 and 3, were at UCLA. The two boys shared a room and had surgery the same day. Dylan and Mario both have pacemakers.

Seven years later, of course, a fourth- and fifth-grader (Dylan is a few months older) have more important topics of conversation than shunts, valves, ventricles and the latest in cardiovascular research. Their heart bond is largely unspoken, but understood.

``When they call each other, they certainly have a lot to talk about,'' says Dylan's mother, Dede Smith. ``I think they both like that feeling of knowing they have a good friend who knows how they feel.''

Together, the Colettis and the Smiths have gone to amusement parks all over Southern California, as well as to Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. A camping trip to Carpinteria is also in the works. Dylan's sister, Sydney, and Mario's sister, Kaitlin, both 5, are also playmates. (Shannon and Dominic Coletti also have a 3-year-old son, Nico.)

Without their families, Dylan and Mario now have a standing summer engagement. Over Labor Day, the boys were cabin mates at Camp del Corazon, a camp specifically designed for children with heart disease or who have undergone heart surgery. The camp, a nonprofit organization whose accommodations are offered free of charge, takes place on Catalina Island.

Lisa Knight, a nurse at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, developed the camp as a place where children could forget about their health-mandated restrictions or limitations, and where a child need not fear eliciting wonder at the pool when peeling off a shirt and revealing a surgical scar.

At Camp del Corazon, nobody will notice. While conditions and medications are closely monitored, for five days the kids get to swim, kayak, climb, hike and be typical campers. And that's the point.

``Parents are left at the dock. That's the deal,'' says Knight, who lives in Sherman Oaks. ``This is not a camp that's there specifically for people to talk about heart disease. We allow them to bring it up among themselves only if they want to.''

The 2000 session was Dylan's second session, Mario's first. The two boys returned home with photographs and plenty of memories: swims, hikes, feats in archery, hornets ...

Hornets?

``Tons, and they land on your plate at lunch time,'' says Mario. ``The air's like `bzzzzz.' I hate it when that happens.''

Not all the campers are up for intense fun and games. Since the camp is for children suffering all stages of heart disease, some can play practically without restrictions while others have a hard time just walking across the beach, says Knight, who co-founded the camp with UCLA pediatric cardiologist Dr. Kevin Shannon.

Seven campers have died in the seven years Knight and Shannon have been running Camp del Corazon, though none during the camp session itself. ``These children do die, and a lot of them have never had an opportunity to go to camp,'' Knight said.

And that can be part of their fellow campers' memories as well. During his first year, Dylan shared a cabin with a boy who had had a heart transplant. ``It was pretty unfortunate because he had to be taken around in a wagon, so I just felt really sorry for him,'' he said.

``He died, like, last summer,'' Dylan added. ``That was kind of sad.''

Dylan and Mario both know that they have limits, but neither says he feels cheated or restricted. This is just something they have learned to accept.

``I really don't worry,'' says Mario. ``I just think, 'It's great that I'm here,' and I try to do everything I can. It doesn't make me any (more special).''

``It's not like it's going to hold him back,' agrees his mother, Shannon, a first-grade teacher. ``We just tell him he can do whatever he wants to do. Everybody has things that are different about them.''

Dylan admits he gets worn out a little more easily than other kids his age, ``But other than that, I'm a normal kid, and I'm doing very well. That's why I think I'm really lucky.''

Max Gerber, an L.A.-based photographer who has interviewed and taken pictures of both boys, believes children living with heart disease mature quickly.

``I think children who are sick, and who always have been sick, kind of develop adult realizations at different rates than healthy people,'' said Gerber, who is working on a book titled ``My Heart vs. the Real World.''

And, yes, you do bond with people who have your identical medical condition, says Gerber, who, like Mario and Dylan, has a pacemaker.

``I went to Sea World with them in July, and we were walking along,'' recalled Gerber. ``Dylan was on one side holding onto the strap of my camera bag. Mario was on the other side. At one point we all stopped walking and they looked at me. All three of us had pacemakers. It was a neat moment.''

No matter how different they turn out to be, or how much they are separated by geographic distance, the two will always share a special bond.

``From what I've seen, they have very different personalities,'' says Gerber. ``But because they have this shared experience, the differences in their personalities don't seem to matter so much.

``They'll never have nothing in common,'' he added. ``Not possible.''

Camp del Corazon is free, although preregistration is required and families must provide transportation to the boat docks in Marina del Rey. Application forms for the 2001 sessions (which run Aug. 27-31 and Aug. 31-Sept. 4) will be available in April.

For more information, call [phone] or [phone] or visit www.campdelcorazon.org.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Buddies at Heart

Dylan Beekman and Mario Coletti have taken their friendship from hospital room to camp cabin

(2) Lisa Knight, a pediatric cardiology nurse and founder of Camp del Corazon, waves goodbye to kids going home after the weeklong camp held on Catalina Island.

(3) A license plate tells the story of Camp del Corazon, a getaway for children with heart problems of all kinds.

(4) Kids such as this one, ascending a climbing wall at Camp del Corazon, face much greater dangers in their everyday lives.

Eric Grigorian/Staff Photographer