Has anyone had heart surgery while being on Liver Transplant list?

Posted by Lou @lcd, Oct 28, 2023

I was put on the liver transplant list five months ago after fighting my symptoms over 15 years ago at Mayo. The Jacksonville team is totally awesome and has saved my life multiple times. Congenial Hepatic Fibrosis, which has led to high portal tension, emergency esophageal banding, TIPS, and multiple bacteremia in blood system, and Sepsis. Naturally over time, I have taken care of my health and Mayo has monitored and tested regularly. I am now "temporarily" put on hold and not available for Transplant. I am 2 weeks post open heart bypass that was not detected previously through years of stress tests, calcium scores....
Has anyone been through this process? Curious once I heal, what Mayo's stance will be on this. I am hoping my new plumbing and 100% recovery will put me back on list as Active. 57 years young!

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Hi Lou, @rosemarya asked me to join in the conversation I'm not sure if I can help as I'm not a liver patient. But I have had a heart Transplant almost 6 years ago. But as for the condition after heart surgery I can offer this aspect to your question. For example, I have known of people who had multiple organs transplanted so I can't see why any surgery would be a hinderance to your Live transplant. I also can share my journey of multiple surgeries prior to my transplant. In order to try and save my old heart I had ablations to try and fix my heart. I also had a bad thyroid that was removed a few weeks before my transplant. As for recovery typically I could resume limited activity about 6 weeks after open heart surgery like driving. mainly due to pain killers. I had to retire so going back to work was not in the future, actually I was about your age, when I got mine. But I was a communication Tech and climbing over 100 ft towers was not possible anymore. Now I'm not familure with liver transplant so I'm guessing maybe they prefer you incision to be Fairly well healed prior to the liver surgery? I know I also went thru heart rehab for a few months which I recommend as it concentrates on getting your heart working which helps with recovery. When I was in rehab i know there were others who had been thru bypass surgery. So I would inquire with your team to see what they recomend to get you back on the list as soon as possible. I definitely recommend the rehab also that will speed up the process and get you in stronger for your next surgery.
Please let me know if I can help further?

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