When Jim Calentino first experienced heart issues, he was in his late 30s, attending a work conference in Las Vegas. For an otherwise healthy young man, the event was unusual. But it didn’t immediately trigger concerns about a decline in his heart function, so he was treated at a hospital and released.
A year later, when he and his wife were vacationing in Lake Tahoe, it happened again. Jim went to the emergency room, where they said he was experiencing ventricular tachycardia (V-tach). Then, he was airlifted to a hospital in Reno.
V-tach is a type of arrhythmia (irregular heart rhythm) originating in the ventricle of the heart, where a person’s heartbeat becomes rapid and irregular and can exceed 150 beats per minute.
As doctors attempted to restore his normal heart rhythm with electrical shock, Jim went into ventricular fibrillation (V-fib), another type of arrhythmia that occurs when the lower chambers of a person’s heart contract in a chaotic, uncoordinated, and often life-threatening manner.
“Doctors said my heart was in a ‘death rhythm’—instead of beating like normal, it was just quivering,” Jim said. Still, the doctors could see no obvious damage to his heart and didn’t have a diagnosis or an answer as to why it was happening. Jim got a pacemaker, which helped. But his heart wasn’t getting better, so he sought treatment in San Diego, where he was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy, or ARVD/C.
The genetic condition occurs when scar tissue replaces normal heart muscle tissues, weakening the heart and making it more difficult to pump blood. Ultimately, that leads to arrhythmias that can be deadly. Most ARVD/C patients are older, so it was uncommon to see it affecting Jim at such a young age.
“They told me that my heart would continue to deteriorate and I would likely need a heart transplant,” Jim said. “But when you feel pretty normal and healthy and someone tells you at 39 years old that you will need a heart transplant someday, I just didn’t take it that seriously.”
Growing up, Jim was active and played a lot of sports; as an adult, he was an avid runner. His pacemaker kept his heart beating normally, even when he experienced V-tach episodes. But his heart condition made it challenging for him to continue exercising regularly. “I developed a sort of post-traumatic stress around physical activity, because I was afraid it would lead to a V-tach episode and I would get a pacemaker shock,” Jim said.
By 2018, almost 20 years after his initial heart episode, it was clear that his heart was deteriorating to the point that he needed to start preparing for transplant. The process can be long, requiring extensive testing to ensure a good donor match when the time comes. Candidates also have to get on the transplant recipient list and wait for a heart, which could take anywhere from a few weeks to months or even years.
Jim was living in Boise, Idaho, and his cardiologist recommended he meet with the transplant team at University of Utah Health when they visited Boise, something they did regularly to meet with transplant candidates.
A couple years later, in 2021, Jim was experiencing gallbladder attacks that regularly landed him in the emergency room. Surgeons in Boise discovered extensive liver damage but refused to operate on his gallbladder due to its proximity to the damaged liver. U of U Health’s transplant team suggested he meet with their surgeon, and Jim was diagnosed with a condition called cardiac cirrhosis, where heart failure causes liver scarring and damage. That’s when he learned he would also need a liver transplant.
“I think that was when the reality of my health situation really hit me,” Jim said. “After doctors told us about the cardiac cirrhosis, my wife did an online search and said, ‘Based on the information I’m seeing, you have a very short time to live.’”
That wasn’t the last significant transplant news he would receive. In July 2022, doctors were doing regular scans and noticed fluctuating kidney numbers. They were worried a heart and liver transplant could worsen his kidney function and he would need a kidney transplant later, which could put strain on his new heart and liver. They decided to do a triple transplant—heart, liver, and kidney—all at once.
In October 2022, Jim went to the emergency room with shortness of breath and had to get fluid drained from around his lungs. When he saw his doctor at U of U Health the following week for a check-up, they said his health had deteriorated significantly and he would need to be admitted to the hospital until he could get the transplants.
“I didn’t feel like anything significant had changed with my health,” Jim said. “But I think I had just been sick for so long, that was my normal.”
Jim didn’t think he was ready for transplant, but after talking to his family, he decided to follow the doctor’s orders. The transplant team immediately put him on the lists for a heart, liver, and kidney. In his current situation, he would be high priority as someone in urgent need of the organs. In the hospital, he was hooked up to a machine that filtered blood and could relieve some of the pressure on the right side of his heart.
He remained in the hospital for about six weeks before getting the news that donor organs were available. “You spend a lot of time thinking about your mortality, your life, whether you’ve done enough and done the right things, and how you might do things differently if given the opportunity to continue living,” Jim said.
One thing that didn’t consume his thoughts during those weeks was concern about the procedure itself. Triple transplants are very rare, but the doctors at U of U Health told Jim they had done it once before and put him in touch with the transplant recipient, who was doing well. The entire transplant team was confident in a good outcome, and that was contagious.
“I think the hardest part of being a transplant recipient is coming to terms with the fact that, for your life to continue, someone else had to lose their life,” Jim said. As he waited for an organ donor, his family and faith community were a big support. “Someone told me that when a person passes away, it’s God’s plan, and that helped bring some peace and clarity for me.”
On December 8, Jim got the news that donor organs were available. The surgeries took place in two parts, transplanting the heart and liver first, then the kidney the following day. As they wheeled him into the operating room, Jim felt ready due to the confidence and positive attitude from the medical staff. But the road to full recovery would not be quick or easy.
He prepared himself for post-surgery pain, but that was one thing he didn’t really experience. Instead, he was unable to move his legs for the first few days, feeling like they were cemented to the hospital bed. He struggled with cognitive issues, like difficulty concentrating and focusing. Jim had difficulty sleeping and some serious delusions, including the feeling that he was being held at the hospital against his will. That led to a couple middle-of-the-night attempts to pull out all his IVs and monitoring devices and escape (something he didn’t remember the next morning when nurses told him about it).
With the help of the rehabilitation team, he would eventually regain movement in his legs, and the cognitive issues and delusions faded. His body was also getting stronger. Jim left the hospital on February 1, almost three and a half months after he was unexpectedly admitted in October. He and his wife rented an apartment near U of U Health, and he spent the next two months completing extensive rehabilitation before returning home to Boise in April.
That’s when he really noticed how much his health had improved. Chores around the house, like mowing the lawn, took almost three hours before the transplant surgery. Now he could do it in an hour. He started walking to build endurance, and today he walks four or more miles a day to maintain his health.
Jim’s outlook has changed after facing his own mortality in such stark terms. “I’m not as critical as I was before,” he said. “I try to take a kinder approach to life. I am more open to new experiences and try to do things that I would have been hesitant to do before.”
He is also extremely grateful for the donor and his family, who chose to give the gift of life to a complete stranger after such a tragic loss of their own.
“I cannot imagine the pain my donor’s family must have experienced losing someone they love, but their selfless choice to donate his organs has given me a chance to remain with the people I love,” Jim said. “I think about that often and try to live my life in a way that honors his memory.”
When he reflects on the entire experience, one thing that stands out is the expertise and compassion of U of U Health’s transplant team.
“I’m so grateful for all the people at U of U Health,” Jim said. “I can’t say enough good things about them. They really gave me all the resources to have a good outcome. I had to put in the effort, but they were telling me what to do every step of the way, and that’s what made me successful. There were a lot of times that it was hard, but I was not going to give up. Too many people put in too much effort—and someone else’s life ended—for me to be here today. Every day is a gift—never, ever give up on yourself.”
