Time Frame

The amount of time between your assessment phase and being discharged from hospital after transplant varies from patient to patient.

Your case history is presented to the Liver Transplant Team at a meeting. Specialized tests will be discussed for you along with the regular “work up.” You are then admitted to hospital. Once these tests are complete, if there are no contraindications, you are formally put on the “waiting list”. You can expect to wait a minimum of a few days to as much as several months. This waiting phase is very difficult to predict due to the limited number of donors. You will be followed by the Transplant Team in a clinic setting every one to two weeks during this time.

Factors that affect how long you could wait include:

• Blood type

• Body size

• Degree of illness compared with other “waiting” patients

• Length of time waiting

After your transplant, the length of stay in SICU varies with each patient and their individual progress. An approximate period would be three days. Recovery and rehabilitation depends on the individual. An uncomplicated post operative course could mean a stay of 2 – 3 weeks. A longer length of stay such as 6 weeks is not uncommon.

After discharge from the hospital, you will continue to be seen by the Team in the Liver Transplant Clinic as per routine (see Discharge Planning).