Another Heart Test

During dialysis, I got a phone call from my cardiologist’s office. I had asked them to send in the results of my Lexiscan heart stress test to UCLA Transplant Center. UCLA’s cardiologist (I’ve seen him before in April) then requested an echocardiogram (echo). My transplant coordinator at UCLA also called me a bit later about the same issue so I told her the echo was already scheduled. I guess things can move fast when they want to. My echo test is this coming Thursday at 1:45 pm.

I’m not sure how to feel about this. This one test has been a mini-emotional rollercoaster. Initially UCLA said I didn’t need a heart stress test since I had bypass surgery. This was confirmed by my April appointment with UCLA’s cardiologist. After a phone meeting with the transplant center director, they now say they want a stress test. I was still okay since I passed the same test in 2016 with a “bad” heart. After the results came out, I wasn’t so sure since my LV EF was <40%. For a few weeks, I was sure that would rule me out for a transplant for life. Then my doctor friend said that number wasn’t too bad, and I could probably raise it through exercise. Good thing I just got a deep cut in my foot. My cardiologist then called to explain the test results and her comment that she didn’t see anything that would prevent a transplant made me feel optimistic again. Next, I find out that UCLA never received the test results so I asked my cardiologist office to send them again. Now I feel conflicted since it’s good that I wasn’t rejected based on the heart stress results, but the fact that they want another test worries me again.

Now multiply this by 100 and you can get a sense of my feelings and emotions over the past 4-5 years as I found out about my ESRD condition and starting dialysis.