Sal P. knew he had kidney disease all his life, but he says he never saw his heart trouble coming.
“That was something I was definitely blindsided by,” he says.
Sal was born with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a condition in which many cysts grow in the kidneys. Over time, damage from PKD can prevent the kidneys from working properly. For much of his life, Sal was in denial about his health condition, he says, despite showing signs and symptoms of kidney damage since his 20s.
Then came his heart attack. After that, Sal’s kidney function declined significantly. His heart was failing too. By July 2022, Sal couldn’t even walk. At his local hospital, Sal was treated with medications and kidney dialysis, but his condition continued to decline.
“I was basically told, ‘There’s not much we can do for you here,’” Sal says. “I was on medicine. The dialysis wasn’t really working. My heart was extremely weak.”
With his heart and kidneys failing, Sal was told in so many words to get his affairs in order. But his fight was far from over.
“I happen to have my wonderful wife, Lisa, who was definitely not going to take no for an answer,” Sal says.
Lisa called hospitals around the country in the hopes of finding help for Sal. She found Temple Health, which has some of the most advanced transplant programs in the country. Temple has the experience and expertise to evaluate each potential transplant patient as an individual — and to treat patients other transplant centers can’t.
Temple was willing to take a chance.
Around Thanksgiving of 2022, Sal came to Temple. He met with members of the Temple transplant team, including Carly A. Fabrizio, DO, and began the evaluation process to determine if he qualified for the national transplant waiting list. The news was better than Sal could have imagined.
“She came in and said, ‘Sal, we’re going to have you on the list in a week,’” Sal says. “You’ll have to do your part, and we’ll do ours.”
“Doing my part was simple,” Sal continues. “I had to go through several tests they wanted, at any time they needed me to. I think there were some tests I went through at 11 o’clock at night. Some were all day long, but it didn’t matter. I was willing to do everything they wanted me to do. They were willing to push hard, and they got me on the list in a week and a half.”
Sal remained hospitalized at Temple University Hospital while he waited for his lifesaving transplants. He received almost daily dialysis treatments and continuous medications for his weakened heart. For his part, Sal also tried to stay as healthy as possible, and to better pass the time, his wife bought him headphones and a subscription to a music streaming service.
“I would walk with my IV pole around the seventh floor,” he says. “I think they said if you do five laps, it is basically a mile. So I would try to do at least five or seven laps a day. It wasn’t easy, but I had to keep pushing myself and doing what needed to be done.”
One night in May 2023, Sal’s wife got the call that donor organs were available.
“I can’t remember how many people came up to visit me,” Sal says. “We took tons of pictures. There were lots of hugs and lots of tears. It was a very positive experience.”
Doctors transplanted the new heart first, followed by kidneys three days later.
Sal’s transplant surgeries went extremely well and soon he was able to go home. Sal says he only had one day of pain and was able to go home to his family only 10 days after the transplants. He had stayed over 10 months in hospitals throughout his ordeal.
“My priority was to get home to my family and give them a big hug and a kiss,” Sal says.
Lisa surprised him with a weeklong trip to the Jersey Shore, which is where the couple first met in 1990. Sal walked along the seawall with his wife of nearly 30 years, something he had been wanting to do for a long time.
That’s what I really wanted to do. I wanted to get back to some normalcy,” Sal says.
Today, Sal is able to enjoy an active life. He and Lisa work out regularly. Sal’s family participated in the local Donor Dash 5K run/walk awareness event in April 2024, and Sal plans to run in it again in 2025.
“Here I am defying a lot of odds, and I have my wife, Lisa, to thank for it,” he says.
He also is grateful for his Temple team. They became like members of his extended family, he says.
“I can’t thank them enough,” Sal says. “Everybody was just fantastic.” His tag line is “Temple Health says yes when others say no!”
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