Your Gift of Life

Life After Transplant

Every trans­plant can­di­date has a dream of what life will be like after trans­plant surgery. It may be dif­fi­cult to absorb all that has hap­pened. You may have ques­tions about your donor, your donor’s fam­i­ly and the process of donation. 

The process of dona­tion begins with a deci­sion to save and heal lives. If your donor was reg­is­tered as an organ, eye and tis­sue donor, we hon­ored their deci­sion upon their death. If they had not made a deci­sion about dona­tion, we asked their fam­i­ly to make a deci­sion about dona­tion on his or her behalf.

As you know, the iden­ti­ty of both the donor and recip­i­ent are kept con­fi­den­tial. We send a let­ter to the donor’s fam­i­ly after the dona­tion with some gen­er­al infor­ma­tion about who their loved one’s organs helped. We also pro­vide grief sup­port and resources in the months and years fol­low­ing their loved one’s death and donation.

If donor fam­i­lies and recip­i­ents choose to com­mu­ni­cate, it is done anony­mous­ly through the trans­plant cen­ter and Iowa Donor Net­work. You can read more about writ­ing to your donor’s fam­i­ly here.

Dis­abil­i­ty Benefits

Did you know organ trans­plant recip­i­ents are auto­mat­i­cal­ly eli­gi­ble for ben­e­fits for a year after their trans­plant? For more infor­ma­tion to see if you’re eli­gi­ble to receive ben­e­fits, read this arti­cle. 

Share Your Story

In advo­cat­ing for organ and tis­sue dona­tion, here are a few points to focus on:

1. Trans­plan­ta­tion works! Your own sto­ry is proof.

2. Encour­age oth­ers to make their own deci­sion about dona­tion. Ask them to take action and join the Iowa Donor Registry.

3. Ask them to tell their fam­i­ly and friends about their deci­sion to be a reg­is­tered donor.