Winning $124,000 on a TV game show might be the biggest event in one’s life for many people. But for Fairview Park resident Allyson Thadeus-Zappe, it wasn’t even the biggest event of the year.

Thadeus-Zappe won the money during an appearance of the NBC-TV game show “Deal or No Deal” which aired Friday. But something much more important happened to her on Jan. 29.

That’s when the 26-year-old, who was born with the lung disease cystic fibrosis, received a double lung transplant at the Cleveland Clinic after a 10-month wait.

Thadeus-Zappe, who grew up in Fairview Park and Westlake, had been able to manage her disease during her school-age years. The 1998 graduate of Westlake High School was even a Demon cheerleader. But her symptoms dramatically worsened after she gave birth to her daughter, Olivia, four years ago.

Allyson Thadeus-Zappe speaks with the banker.

Ten months after being placed on the transplant list, Thadeus-Zappe’s condition had deteriorated even further.

“It was awful,” she said. “I was sleeping 18 hours a day ... I would take two steps and I’d have to sit down and almost faint because I was huffing and puffing.”

“I said to my husband the night I checked in, “If I don’t get lungs while I’m in the hospital now, I’m going to die.’”

But that night the hospital informed her that donor lungs had become available. She went home just 10 days after the transplant.

“Brand new beautiful lungs,” she said. “There are no words to describe how I feel.”

She auditioned for the show at a casting call in Cleveland just four weeks after her transplant. When producers later called and told her she would be a contestant at an April 1 taping, Thadeus-Zappe asked, “Is this an April Fool’s joke?” But it wasn’t.

“Deal or No Deal” host Howie Mandel is known for being a germophobe, even to the point where he refuses to shake hands with contestants. Like other contestants, Thadeus-Zappe was told to bump fists with Mandel when she came out on stage.

“Which was fine with me,” Thadeus-Zappe said, “because I had just had my transplant and I had to be a germophobe at that point. So that was good.

“But actually at one point he gave me a hug. That’s because I was super clean and he knew it. So we got along good.”

Thadeus-Zappe, together with LifeBanc, the organ donation procurement agency, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Rainbow Chapter, sponsored a viewing party of her initial appearance on “Deal” April 26 at Dave and Buster’s restaurant in Westlake. When she was introduced at 8:50 p.m., the approximately 120 family members and friends who joined her to watch cheered.

Thadeus-Zappe got off to a great start. She chose suitcases by picking numbered balls out of a bag she brought on to the set. When Wednesday’s show ended, she had eliminated the five lowest monetary values.

Her luck wasn’t so hot on Friday’s show. The second suitcase she chose contained the grand prize of $1 million.

“Deal” contestants can consult with family and friends in the audience on strategy. When the banker offered her $37,000, her mother, Liz, said “It’s easy for me to tell her not to take it. I’m already rich because I’ve got my baby back. No amount of money could compete with that.”

Even Howie Mandel agreed that Thadeus-Zappe was fortunate.

“Just the fact that you are here, you are a winner,” he said.

Twice Thadeus-Zappe upstaged Mandel, an actor and comedian. First, she announced her refusal of the banker’s deal before Mandel had a chance to say the show’s trademark line, “Deal or no deal.” Later she demanded to speak by phone with the banker herself, something done up until then only by the host.

Although Thadeus-Zappe’s suitcase contained $300,000, she considers the deal she made for $124,000 a victory.

“I’m very happy with my results,” she said.

“Had I won only a penny, had I won a million, the experience would have been awesome,” she said. “Because I have a transplant, I have a whole new lease on life. So I was happy with that in itself.”

Thadeus-Zappe hopes her story will inspire others to become organ donors. She is encouraging people to check the donor box on their driver’s licenses and visit the LifeBanc Web site to become a donor.

When she dies, she can still donate several organs, she noted. And she intends to, she said.

“As a mother, I would be more than honored, if something happened to Olivia, to donate her organs, because she could save eight people,” she said.

“Let your family know your wishes ... Let them know you want to be an organ donor.”

On the Web:

• Deal or No Deal / NBC
• LifeBanc