Organ transplants : making the most of your gift of life

Over 64,000 people in the US are living in limbo, awaiting an organ transplant.

The good news about organ transplants is that they are becoming fairly routine surgical procedures. The even better news is that they do work miracles. People who have been in ill health for years often describe a feeling of being reborn after a transplant.

However, those families who have been told that a loved one needs a transplant to live are thrust into a strange land. Patients and families worry that no organ will be available to them. They may fear the surgery or what living with someone else's organ will feel like. They may have only a foggy idea of what staying with an immunosuppressive therapy regime after the operation will entail.

Organ Transplants: Making the Most of Your Gift of Lifedescribes:

• Deciding whether to have a transplant and choosing a transplant team
• The importance of the screening interview
• What factors go into determining a match, and what to do while waiting
• Detailed information on heart and lung, liver, kidney and pancreas, and other transplants
• Anti-rejection drugs and living with a transplant
• Emotional responses and support
• Specific situations such as living donors, transplants in children, meeting the donor family, etc.

Robert Finn, medical and scientific journalist and author, has interviewed dozens of patients, family members, medical caregivers, and transplant activists to present your family with the latest facts about transplantation--as well as the stories behind those facts.