"The scariest words I'd ever heard were, 'We got his heart out and he's on the heart-lung machine,'" Judy Smith said. A nurse had stepped into the waiting room three hours into Jim's heart transplant at Saint Luke's Hospital in November 2007.

Jim and Judy Smith, of Overland Park, have a partnership honed of love and struggle, and they passionately support each other. They met at Purdue University. Jim was from a southern Indiana farm and was majoring in agricultural economics. Judy, an Indiana city girl, majored in pharmacy.

Jim's heart began to fail 20 years ago when he was driving hard to build his career. Judy, a full-time mother of three children, swallowed her fears as she watched him leave every day, praying he'd come home safe. During these years, they've learned how to reach out beyond their burdens and grasp life with both hands.

Jim, now 69, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in 1989, during a routine physical. The first doctor he saw said he had no chance without a transplant, and the shock of that news was stunning. So they sought a different doctor who felt they could handle the symptoms using medication. He said "Keep doing what you feel like doing," and Jim did just that, even running 20 miles every week.

Jim was then president of an agribusiness firm and regularly traveled around the world. About a year before the transplant, he was vaccinating cattle in Inner Mongolia in 40-below-zero weather.

When Judy began a critical volunteer job, Jim—in spite of his professional responsibilities and fragile health—had the opportunity to help carry her burdens. In 1996, she became director of Kansas Concerned Women for America, the largest women's conservative public policy organization in the United States. She lobbies in the Kansas Legislature and is on the organization's national board. Jim arranges his schedule to accompany her to meetings in Washington, D.C., where she once debated Barry Lynn.

"I was very proud of her. She knew her subject and she won," Jim said with pride.

Recently she's been researching and speaking on the subject of human trafficking.

"I can't pass a truck stop anymore without having my stomach knot up when I see trucks parked along the back of the property," she said. "I know what happens there."

In October 2007, the Smiths were riding horses at 6,000 feet altitude in Bridger- Teton National Forest, above Jackson Hole, Wyo. After they crossed a narrow ledge with 1,000-foot drop-offs on each side, Jim had a cramp. When he reached down to rub it, his saddle slipped sideways and spooked his horse. Jim had suffered more symptoms from his cardiomyopathy, and he couldn't stand up.

The guide had to take the group down and bring an ATV back up to get him, leaving them alone in the hot sun.

Jim's heart returned to normal, but he experienced the problem again on his first day back at work and the doctors said it was time for a transplant.

"I was a basket case, but Jim was very calm," Judy said.

His attitude is, "Whether I live or die, it's the Lord's choice."
One midnight, after seven weeks of tubes and continuous IV treatment at home, the couple got a call from the transplant staff and drove to Saint Luke's.

"After surgery Jim was awake in three to four hours, and when I first saw him, he looked wonderful and pink," Judy said. "I hadn't realized how gray his skin was."

Jim cried at every opportunity for a couple of days. This was unusual behavior for him, and his explanation is, "It must be a woman's heart."

By the fourth day after surgery, Jim was walking down the halls without tubes.

"The doctors loved Jim's spirit," Judy said.

The Smiths speak highly of the transplant team at Mid America Heart Institute, part of the Saint Luke's Health System. The team evaluated 20 hearts and traveled to locations to consider two or three. "You have a very good heart," they told Jim. But the transplant team has revealed nothing else about the donor, although the Smiths say they would be willing to talk to the family.

"We've written to them through the hospital, but it's up to them to reach out," Judy said. "I pray for them and never lose sight of the wonderful gift they've given to Jim and to all of us."

The Smiths attend reunions with other heart transplant recipients through the Mid America Heart Institute—over 400 now—several times a year.

"Both Judy and I really enjoy encouraging prospective recipients and their families," Jim said. "They're usually very afraid."

At first the rejection medication made Jim sick, but he was disciplined about taking it.

"That's one of the reasons he was a good risk," Judy said—that and the fact that Jim was in good physical shape because he exercises.

He underwent a heart biopsy every week for six months, but a new blood test is used instead now. At first he couldn't fly, and he still can't travel to places where he'd need a live vaccine for a visa. And he can't be around anyone who's had a recent measles vaccination.

Now chairman of Pulse Needlefree Systems, Jim has traveled to Chile and Brazil since his recovery, and has played 70 to 80 rounds of golf. Recently he played in a tournament with his 16-year-old grandson and they won. It was "an experience with his grandfather that boy will never forget," Judy said.

"But the most important thing we've learned is how to depend completely on the Lord," Jim said quietly, and smiled.

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