improvement in quality of life and and increase in quantity of life.
For many recipients, getting a transplant means not just preventing
immediate death, but having many additional years of feeling
dramatically better than when they were sick. Some transplant
patients have been sick nearly all their lives, and having a
transplant means that they can finally lead the active life they've
never had before. For those with kidney failure, a transplant frees
them from dialysis - a very time consuming treatment on which
they often feel exhausted. Still other patients may experience
life-threatening sudden organ failure, especially liver failure, and
face rapid death without a transplant. For these patients, the
transplant is immediately life-saving.
This is not to say that transplant recipients are freed from all
medical concerns. All people who receive a transplant must take
immunosuppressive (rejection-preventing) and other medications
daily. They must monitor themselves for signs of rejection or
other health problems, and in general take good care of
themselves and the transplanted organ. But this is a small price
to pay for the extra years of healthy life that they gain.
