UCLA Cardiologist Gives Her OK

I received some good news this week: The UCLA cardiologist is recommending to the transplant team that I be placed on the wait list. Since I had been told by the transplant surgeon and the head of the kidney-pancreas transplant team that they needed to hear from the cardiologist before making a decision, I am under the impression that they will go with her recommendation. Let's hope so.

In fact, just from a collegiality standpoint, I would think that the transplant team would have to go with her recommendation. If they said they needed to hear her opinion and then they disregard her opinion, that's a bit of a slap in her professional face. They wouldn't appreciate it if another doctor did the same to them. So I have a good feeling about this.

I had written several emails to my Kaiser nephrologist and cardiologist this week about the nuclear scan of my heart that was taken last week. In part, I asked that they ask their UCLA colleagues to stop "looking at the damn lab results and start looking at the person who is standing in front of them." I said that it is like looking at a student's failing grades and, on that basis, labeling him stupid, when all the while he's writing Nobel Prize-winning novels and findig a cure for cancer. This is analogous to my situation: The lab results paint a discouraging picture, but I feel great. I wrote that on Monday evening I walked two hours without stopping, without chest pain, without shortness of breath, whereas my walking companion, who is supposedly without health problems, was near-panting. I feel that I am in better shape than most of the women my age who don't have kidney disease. Certainly I am a better, healthier transplant candidate than someone who is 50+ pounds overweight and doesn't exercise!