@thankful, I hope you had a great thanksgiving!! Here is the update. Husband's cardiologist will attempt to fix the CTO by installing a stent. As mentioned in my earlier comment, the success rate is a mere 30% and our cardiologist does not recommend a bypass because it would be "overkill". Naturally, Mayo Clinic kidney transplant wants all cardiovascular disease fixed before they would even consider the patient for a kidney evaluation. So as it stands now, we will have our cardiologist perform an angioplasty and see what happens. If he can clear the blockage then my husband is good to go for kidney transplant eval at Mayo Az. If not, we will seek a second opinion at Mayo Az. I have made a appointment for the third week of Feb 2021, to consult with a Mayo Cardiologist. I was told the consulting cardiologist is NOT the interventive cardiologist who will perform the procedure. Dr. John Lynch has been assigned to my husband. Is this the same Dr. Lynch that you saw?
We were also told that NO visitors are allowed in the hospital because of COVID. The patient has to be tested for COVID at Mayo and must arrive 2 days prior to appointment. The first 2 days will be testing for COVID and if negative, we can proceed with appointment. So that means I will not be able to go to the appointment with husband. I did, however, request the initial consultation be done by video. And I sure hope Dr. Lynch can schedule all tests on the same day so that we do not have to stay too long in Az. My husband still works full time and very difficult for him to take time off. Since his kidney failure in Nov 2018, he has had to take much time off for surgeries and various doctor appointments and he is running out of PTOs at work. Most of procedures and surgeries he has had in the past 2 years are all for transplant clearances and have burned thru his PTOs!! I very much hope that our UCLA cardiologist is successful in fixing the CTO. If not, then I sincerely hope that Mayo can help resolve the CTO without having to resort to doing a bypass, which our current cardiologist says he DOES NOT recommend bypass for this kind of blockage. Cardiologist says husband can live a long life without having to fix the CTO, because the collateral blood vessels are supplying adequate blood supply(EF is 65%)Would be interesting to hear what Mayo has to say, if we need to seek a second opinion.