Welcome to Surviving Transplantation
Disclaimer: This guide does not provide any medical advice, nor does it promote, endorse, or recommend any product, therapy, or institution. You should exercise due diligence when dealing with any of the providers listed, as you would in any other new business arrangement. Excellent communication between the patient and all the medical providers are considered absolutely necessary in this medical environment. Good communication can not be overemphasized.
If you have previously read the following introduction and agree to our disclaimer, you may proceed directly to read the book. Otherwise, you are expected to read the next few paragraphs before continuing.
Surviving Transplantation was written because of several very positive reviews and comments that helped to convince us to publish this edition. As with the text edition, our primary goal has been to make this material available to as many transplant candidates and recipients as is possible. By publishing the book digitally, we plan to continuously revise its contents as technological developments occur in the rapidly advancing field of organ transplantation.
We will also be able to include additional information on coping as we hear your further comments and questions.
Surviving Transplantation is intended as a guide to coping for persons undertaking major organ transplantation. Any ideas contained within this book should be considered in the context of your personal health circumstances. As you will read in several places in Surviving Transplantation, we recommend that you consult a physician or another health professional before undertaking any changes in your personal health care.
The contents of Surviving Transplantation may be read, downloaded, printed and/or copied for personal use only. Specific sections may be printed and distributed in response to specific questions posed by transplant candidates, recipients or their family members. No changes and/or alterations of any kind may be made to the text. Otherwise, none of the contents of Surviving Transplantation may be copied, duplicated or distributed by any means without the previous permission of the authors.
Finally, the reader should keep in mind that none of the comments, personal vignettes or clinical examples refers to any individual person. Any quotation and or reference that are attributed to a fictitious name in Surviving Transplantation have been composed by the authors as representative of the many persons who have told us of their experiences. If you have read and agree to the comments in this disclaimer, you may now proceed to read Surviving Transplantation.
Note to Candidates (and their families): This guide is meant to be a "living" book. It will be updated to reflect the continuous changes in the transplant and medical communities. It is being written to make available the best information that present transplant recipients and current candidates have to share with each new candidate. Progresses in the transplant and medical health fields are made each day. Both living related and non-related donors donate kidneys, partial livers, partial pancreases, and recently lung lobes. Generous families of loved ones that are declared brain dead donates hearts, heart valves, lungs, livers, pancreases, kidneys, intestines and corneas. Bone marrow and tissue come from a living donor who may or may not be a blood relative of the recipient. Donors and their families are people just like you and me.
Recipients are forever grateful for the generosity of their donors, expressed with two overused but sincere words - "Thank you!" usually followed by, "I would not be here today to . . . if it were not for your generosity!"