After-Transplant Care

Leaving the hospital
Whether you are the recipient of a new kidney or pancreas, we’ll monitor you closely as you return home from the hospital. During the first few weeks after discharge from the hospital, you will be required to return to OSF Saint Francis two to three times a week for follow-up blood draws and clinic visits. It is very important to keep these appointments so that your surgeon can manage your medications and monitor your post-operative course to ensure that your transplant is functioning properly. (You will not be able to drive for 3-4 weeks after your transplant, so please plan for some assistance with your transportation).
After the first month or so, the frequency of blood draws and clinic visits may decrease, depending on your recovery process. However, you will have to have blood drawn regularly for the rest of your life, as long as your transplanted organ is functioning.

New medications
When you leave the hospital, you will be taking a lot of medications. The most important medications you will be taking are your anti-rejection, or immunosuppressive medicines. It is important for you to know when and how to take your new medications. The nurses and transplant coordinators will teach you about your new medicines while you are in the hospital. It will be your responsibility to completely understand your medications, and to take them at the same time everyday. If you ever stop taking these medications, you will reject your transplanted organ. You must be an active participant in taking care of your new transplant.

Living donor
Donors undergoing laparoscopic nephrectomy are usually discharged from the hospital after two days and return to normal activity within four weeks. Donors having open nephrectomy can expect to be discharged from the hospital in four to five days and return to normal activity within four to eight weeks.

It is important to talk to your doctor about what to expect.

Your first follow-up appointment will be one week after your surgery with the surgeon that removed your kidney. You will also have an appointment with the nephrologist that gave your donor clearance for donation at six months and twelve months post-op and then on a yearly basis to monitor kidney function and blood pressure.