The Transplant Experience Journal is a collection of stories, pictures, and personal experiences from families about what it has been like to have a liver, kidney, heart, or lung transplant. It represents the "collective wisdom" of these families as well as their health care providers. A group of parents and health care providers has reviewed all of these contributions for appropriateness.

The Transplant Experience Journal was created by Children's Hospital Boston, in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles. We welcome family members to enter and explore the Transplant Experience Journal. The journal has the following chapters:

	Family Contributions:
	• Before the Transplant  • After the Transplant  • Getting to the Hospital & Other Concerns  • How Family Members Cope  • How Kids Cope	• School  • Taking the Medications  • Telling Friends  • Words of Wisdom  • One Family's CF & Lung Transplant Journey
	Child Contributions:
	• Before the Transplant  • After the Transplant  • Advice for Other Kids  • Coping  • Family	• Medications  • Procedures  • School  • Staying in the Hospital  • Telling Friends
	Family Videos:
	• A Family Interview  • Kids and Parents Talk
	Clinician Contributions:
	• Advice  • How Family Members Cope  • Life after Transplant  • Procedures  • Questions Before Transplant	• Questions After Transplant  • School Reentry  • Taking the Medications  • Ways of Coping  • Links

A note about color-coding: When building the Transplant Experience Journal we were faced with the decision of whether to create separate pages for each organ (i.e. heart, kidney etc.), or whether to group all of the organs together. We have chosen to group all of the stories together, to create a website focusing on the aspects of the transplant experience that are similar across organs. However, we have color-coded the transplant stories, so that if you are interested in reading narratives related to a particular organ you are able to do so easily. Heart transplant stories appear in orange , kidney transplant stories in purple , liver transplant stories in blue and lung transplant stories in green . This color code is displayed at the bottom of each chapter for your reference.  [ heart    kidney    liver    lung ]

We know that there may be some emotional discomfort associated with reading the stories of children and parents describing their experience dealing with transplant. Nonetheless, we hope that families learn from the stories of others facing similar experiences. The goal of the Transplant Experience Journal is to facilitate the strength and resiliency that lies in every child and family facing adversity.

Acknowledgements