Long Island man going strong with kidney transplant from wife 30 years later

Bob Violino may seem like a cat with nine lives. The Massapequa Park resident has survived life-threatening ordeals including kidney disease, an amputation and cardiac arrest — and has lived for 30 years with a transplanted kidney donated by his wife, Renee.

But he said he does not see himself “as a patient, as a sick person.”

“I don’t want to be thought of as somebody who is sick all the time and went through hell and back, because that’s not true,” said Violino, 68. “I want to be thought of as somebody who survived these events and made the most of it, and shared things.”

He frames his journey — one that stands out among transplant cases for its long-term success — as one of perseverance and positivity. And he’s on a mission to share that outlook.

Love and Kidneys

Violino said he was studying journalism at the University of Maryland in 1979 when he was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. Ten years later, he started dialysis, which filters waste from the blood when kidneys can no longer do that job. The change reshaped life for his family, which by then included one son, Andrew.

“It wasn’t ideal, let’s put it that way,” he said.

By 1994, Violino’s condition had worsened to the point where he “absolutely needed a transplant.” He received a deceased donor’s kidney in Boston that year, but complications quickly followed.

“It didn’t feel right,” he said. “I remember telling them ‘please take this kidney out because it’s not working.’ ”

The kidney was removed due to clotting issues. His own kidneys were later removed as the disease progressed.

Several relatives volunteered to donate, but none ended up working out. Then Renee stepped forward.

“Even up until the time we were at the transplant office up in Westchester and we were talking about moving forward, I was still feeling really nervous about the whole thing,” Violino said. “It’s a major operation for donors, and it would also mean that our son, Andrew, would have both his parents in the hospital at the same time having major surgery.”

But Renee, 66, was clear on what she had to do.

“It was an easy decision,” she said. “I did it for my son . . . so that he didn’t lose his dad.”

Renee helped ease his fears by showing him an article from The New England Journal of Medicine about successful kidney donations between spouses.

When the surgery was scheduled for Oct. 25, 1995 — their anniversary — Violino saw it as a sign.

“That was our ninth anniversary, and so that was kind of like an epiphany where I thought, well, maybe I shouldn’t fight this,” he said.

The transplant, performed at Westchester Medical Center in upstate Valhalla, was a success and their story was featured in several Newsday stories that year. The couple named the kidney “George” while Renee joked she kept “Georgette.”

Thirty years later, there is no guarantee how long the kidney will last, but Violino said he feels blessed and grateful.

“I am living proof that transplantation works. I have nothing but admiration for those who volunteer to be organ donors,” Violino said.

Not only did the Violinos go on to have their second child, Tim, three years later, in 1998, but they are set to welcome their first grandchild in July.

ORGAN ‘lifespans’

Violino’s story is in many ways an outlier, both because of the length of the success from his transplant and because of who it came from.

About 21,000 of the 27,500 kidney transplants in the United States in 2025 were from deceased donors, compared to the 6,500 from living donors, according to the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing.

While Bob Violino has lived with his transplanted kidney for 30 years, the lifespan of a donated organ varies widely, said Dr. Frank Darras, senior transplant surgeon and medical director of the kidney transplant program at Stony Brook University Hospital. And those from living donors typically last longer.

“The statistics are a little difficult to interpret because our patients range in age from 1 year old to 80 years old,” Darras said. “If you get a kidney from a deceased donor, it might be 12 to 15 years. If you get a kidney from a living donor, it might be 20 years plus.”

The Mayo Clinic reported in 2023 that a Wisconsin woman whose kidney transplant was in 1966 is believed to be the longest surviving transplant recipient.

Dawn Francisquini, Stony Brook’s administrative director for transplant services, said she believed it is more common for people to wait on the transplant list, and familial donations happen more often than those from living strangers, but “we are starting to see a lot more of the altruism, meaning people come forward that don’t know someone [but] just want to donate.”

Violino’s brother, Paul, also was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease and received a kidney transplant from a friend’s son in 2024.

When his heart stopped

Even with the successful transplant, Bob Violino’s medical journey continued. In 2022, he experienced a cardiac arrest that left him clinically dead for 10 minutes, he said.

“I was having chest pain, and I’ve had those same sensations before,” he recalled. “They’d go away, like when I would be walking more rigorously I would feel it, but then it would fade after a few minutes. This did not go away.”

Renee called 911.

Violino remembers feeling disoriented and hearing a lot of voices as the hospital staff revived him.

“And I knew it was serious, but I didn’t quite know why,” he said. “But the thing is, I came out of that with no cognitive damage.”

He later underwent a foot amputation related to vascular issues and his body struggled in the aftermath. Violino went into heart and respiratory failure and was placed on life support. He recovered — something he does not take lightly.

Sharing with others

After recovering, Violino began to think differently about how to use his time.

“And I started thinking I need to do something where I can use my writing to help people, to help others,” he said, though he still writes about tech professionally.

In 2023 he launched a blog (inspirations-blog.com).

“The main topics are gratitude and positivity . . . but they’re basically observations that I make,” he said.

The blog eventually became the foundation for his 2025 self-published book, “Life Lessons: How I’ve Learned to Embrace Gratitude, Positivity, Resilience and Joy,” with each chapter centered on a takeaway drawn from his experiences, supported by research and personal anecdotes.

Violino describes resilience as essential.

“Sooner or later we all go through difficult times . . . and we need to find a way to be resilient, look for the positives in life,” he said.