You should expect to stay in the hospital for 7 - 21 days after a lung transplant. You will likely spend time in the intensive care unit (ICU) right after surgery.

During your hospital stay, you will:

• Be asked to sit on the side of the bed and then walk on the same day you have surgery
• Have a tube coming out of the side of your chest to drain fluids
• Wear special stockings on your feet and legs to prevent blood clots
• Receive shots to prevent blood clots
• Receive pain medicine through a tube that goes into your vein (IV) or by mouth with pills. You may receive your pain medicine through a special machine that gives you a dose of pain medicine when you push a button. This allows you to control how much pain medicine you receive.
• Be asked to do a lot of deep breathing to help prevent pneumonia and infection, and to inflate the lung that was transplanted. Your chest tube will stay in place until your lung has fully inflated.

The recovery period is about 6 months. Often, your transplant team will ask you to stay fairly close to the hospital for the first 3 months. You will need to have regular check-ups with blood tests and x-rays for many years.

A lung transplant is a major procedure performed for patients with life-threatening lung disease or damage. Around four out of five people are still alive 1 year after the transplant. Around two out of five transplant recipients are alive at 5 years. Outcomes are similar for single and double lung transplants.

Fighting rejection is an ongoing process. The body's immune system considers the transplanted organ as an invader (much like an infection) and may attack it.

To prevent rejection, organ transplant patients must take anti-rejection (immunosuppression) drugs (such as cyclosporine and corticosteroids). These drugs suppress the body's immune response and reduce the chance of rejection. As a result, however, these drugs also reduce the body's natural ability to fight off infections.