What should families expect in the days and weeks after transplant?
What I usually tell families is if everything goes very well, you should expect five or so days in the ICU and then about another three weeks on the solid organ transplant floor, recuperating and getting education. But the time could be slightly shorter if everything is really good, or it could be a lot longer if there are any complications.

Dawn Freiberger, RN, MSN, Lung Transplant Program, Lung Transplant Program

What kind of education do they get while they are here?
They get very intensive education on all the different medications. The parents and the children, if they’re old enough, have to be very good at understanding that they have to learn how to prevent infection, when to call, what symptoms to look for, what’s a concern, what’s not a concern. Our patients in the lung program keep a transplant log that they do daily: they do their vital signs daily and they have a little home machine that measures their lung function. They have to learn how to use all that equipment and they have to check their weight. So there’s a lot that they have to learn!

Dawn Freiberger, RN, MSN, Lung Transplant Program