Transplants & Donations

This collection brings together stories of heart, pancreas and cornea transplants, of hand, face and uterus transplants, and of the newer frontier of animal-to-human transplants that only a handful of people have been through. Recipients write about being listed, about a phone that could ring at any hour, about anti-rejection medication and its side effects, and about the strange weight of knowing that someone else's loss made your own life possible.

The donor side is here in equal measure: living liver donors, stem cell donors matched to a stranger, and regular blood and platelet donors describing what an hour in the chair is really like. Each ebook collects fifty separate voices, so you see how differently people handle the same waiting room, the same ward and the same follow-up appointments. They are written for patients on a list, for donors still thinking it over, and for the families who carry a great deal of it alongside them.

Where to start

• Heartswap: Heart Transplant Stories — the waiting list, the call and the first year after
• Sweet Release: Pancreas Transplant Stories — for people with long-standing type 1 diabetes weighing it up
• New Outlook: Cornea Transplant Stories — a smaller procedure, described step by step
• Piece of Me: Living Liver Donor Stories — donors on the decision, the surgery and the recovery
• Cell Heroes: Stem Cell Donor Stories — being matched to a stranger and what donating involves
• Give Life: Blood Donation Experience Stories — the simplest place to begin giving