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Coping Emotionally After an Organ Transplant
Getting help with the emotions of guilt, frustration, or confusion you may feel after an organ transplant.
When most people think about getting an organ transplant, they focus on the obvious physical aspects: the illness, the operation, and the healing. They're less likely to think about the emotional impact. But that can be profound too, both for you and the people around you.
Richard Perez, MD, PhD, the director of the Transplant Center at the University of California Medical Center at Davis says that he's seen all sorts of reactions to the experience. "For almost all of the patients, there's an initial sense of elation if the surgery goes well," he tells WebMD. "They have a sense of relief and hope."
But with time, that optimism may be tinged with other feelings too. You may start to worry about your condition coming back. You may be afraid of organ rejection. You may fixate on the uncertainty of the future.
It's perfectly natural to have these feelings. But if these worries take over your life, you need to do something about it.
Guilt After an Organ Transplant
"It's very common for people to feel guilt after a transplant," says Jeffrey D. Punch, MD, chief of the Division of Transplantation at the University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor. "They think a lot about the donor and feel guilty for benefiting from his or her death."
He says it's often most difficult for people who became very ill and prayed and hoped for an organ to become available. Afterwards, they feel guilty, as if they were wishing for someone to die.
But Perez says that most come to terms with their mixed emotions.
"The whole act of transplantation is a way of getting some sense of meaning from a death," Perez tells WebMD. "Both the organ recipient and the donor family focus on that, and it's a source of comfort for many of them."
For many people, getting in touch with the donor family can help, says Barry Friedman, RN, administrative director of the Solid Organ Transplant Program at the Children's Medical Center in Dallas. To respect privacy, organ donation organizations won't allow you to get in direct contact without the donor family's agreement. But you can at least write a letter that your health care team can pass on to them.
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