Bone Marrow Transplant Recovery: A Week-By-Week Timeline and What Speeds It Up

On the whiteboard in a transplant room, someone has written “Day +9” in blue marker and drawn a small, uncertain sun beside it. The patient did not draw it. Her daughter did, on a morning when the blood counts still sat near zero and the mouth sores made talking hurt. Nobody in that room was thinking about the distant future. They were thinking about Day +10.

That is what recovering from a bone marrow transplant actually is: not one event but a long procession of numbered days, each with its own weather. The neutrophil count that finally ticks upward. The first walk to the far end of the corridor. The afternoon, weeks later, when a nap is a choice rather than a collapse.

This guide maps that procession honestly, week by week and then month by month, and separates the habits that genuinely help from the folklore that circulates in waiting rooms.

Why does bone marrow transplant recovery follow a timeline at all?

Every transplant calendar starts at Day 0, the day the stem cells go in. Everything before it carries a minus sign; everything after, a plus. Patients learn this notation fast, because the biology behind it is unforgiving in its sequence.

Bone marrow is the body’s blood factory. It turns out red cells that carry oxygen, platelets that stop bleeding, and white cells that fight infection. Before a transplant, high-dose chemotherapy, sometimes with radiation, is used to clear the marrow of diseased cells and, in a donor transplant, to make room for a new immune system. The factory is shut down on purpose. According to MedlinePlus, the infused stem cells travel through the bloodstream to the marrow and begin producing new blood cells over the following weeks, a process called engraftment, which typically takes about two to four weeks.

Until that happens, the body is running on stored inventory. Red cells and platelets can be transfused; neutrophils, the front-line white cells, largely cannot. So the low point in the counts, called the nadir, is the stretch when infection risk peaks and symptoms feel worst. Recovery follows a timeline because the marrow follows one. Neutrophils return first, platelets later, and a fully retrained immune system takes the better part of a year or more, as both the Mayo Clinic and NHS describe.

Understanding this order changes how the hard days feel. The misery of week two is not a sign the transplant is failing. It is the expected shape of the curve.

What happens in the week before Day 0?

The minus days are quieter than most people expect, and that quiet can be misleading. Conditioning treatment usually runs over several days before the infusion, and its effects arrive on a delay. Patients often feel reasonably well on Day -5 and wonder what the fuss is about. The fuss shows up around Day +5.

A central venous catheter is placed before conditioning, a soft tube in a large chest vein that will carry chemotherapy, fluids, transfusions, and the stem cells themselves. Blood draws come through it too, which spares veins in the arms for weeks.

The conditioning regimen itself is chosen by the transplant team based on the disease, the type of transplant, age, and overall fitness. The Mayo Clinic describes two broad approaches: higher-intensity regimens designed to clear the marrow completely, and reduced-intensity regimens that lean more on the donor immune system to do the work. Which approach applies is a clinical decision, and the trade-offs deserve a frank conversation with the prescribing team rather than a guess from the internet.

Practical things matter here. Eat well while appetite lasts. Walk laps of the unit while energy lasts. Get dental work checked beforehand, because a mouth that starts clean tolerates the coming weeks better. Ask what the unit’s isolation rules are and who may visit. Ask about a caregiver plan for discharge now, not on the day you leave.

Day 0 itself is often anticlimactic: a bag that looks like a blood transfusion, running in over an hour or two. Some units mark it as a second birthday. The real work begins the next morning.

What are the hardest days after a bone marrow transplant?

Ask anyone who has been through it and the answer clusters tightly: the second week. Roughly Days +5 through +14, when the conditioning treatment has done its full damage and the new marrow has not yet started producing. Blood counts sit at their lowest. So does morale.

Three things converge. First, the lining of the mouth and gut, which renews itself every few days in health, has stopped renewing. MedlinePlus lists mouth sores, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea among the most common effects of the conditioning phase. Swallowing can hurt enough that pain relief through the catheter and nutrition through a vein become necessary for a stretch. Second, with neutrophils near zero, fever is common and is always treated as a potential infection until proven otherwise. Third, fatigue arrives that is unlike ordinary tiredness; sitting up to brush teeth can feel like a workout.

Hair loss, if it occurs, tends to begin around this time as well. So do skin changes from chemotherapy.

Two honest points balance the picture. Many of these symptoms are actively managed, and supportive care in transplant units has become sophisticated: mouth care protocols, anti-nausea approaches, antimicrobial coverage started at the first fever, transfusions when platelets or hemoglobin drop. The prescribing team will tailor these, and it helps to describe symptoms specifically rather than stoically. “A 7 out of 10 when I swallow” gets better care than “I’m fine.”

The other point is the calendar itself. Week two is hard precisely because week three is when engraftment usually begins. The whiteboard sun is not naive. It is a reasonable reading of the biology.

Bone marrow transplant recovery week by week: the first month

Individual courses vary a great deal by transplant type, age, and underlying disease, so treat the table below as the typical shape rather than a schedule to hold your body to. Timing is drawn from MedlinePlus and Mayo Clinic descriptions of the transplant process.

Stage	Typical days	What is happening in the marrow	What it usually feels like
Conditioning	Day -7 to Day -1	Chemotherapy, sometimes with radiation, clears existing marrow	Often surprisingly well; fatigue and nausea begin toward the end
Infusion	Day 0	Stem cells enter the bloodstream and home to the marrow	Usually uneventful; sometimes flushing, chills, or an odd taste
Nadir	Roughly Day +5 to +14	Blood counts at their lowest; no new cells yet	The hardest stretch: mouth sores, gut symptoms, fevers, deep fatigue
Early engraftment	Roughly Day +10 to +28	Neutrophils begin to rise; transfusion needs ease	Mouth heals first; appetite returns slowly; energy still low
Toward discharge	Roughly Day +21 to +42	Counts stabilizing; platelets recover more slowly	Walking further, eating by mouth, learning home routines

Autologous transplants, which use a person’s own stored cells, tend to run toward the shorter end of these ranges. Allogeneic transplants from a donor often take longer and add the layer of graft-versus-host monitoring covered later in this article. Cord blood transplants engraft more slowly still.

One more variable nobody controls: the counts do not rise in a straight line. A neutrophil number that climbs on Tuesday can dip on Wednesday before climbing again. Transplant teams watch trends over several days rather than single values, and patients who adopt the same habit spare themselves a good deal of daily heartbreak.

How do you know engraftment has happened, and what does it feel like?

Engraftment is a laboratory event before it is a felt one. Each morning a blood sample goes to the lab, and each morning the team looks at the absolute neutrophil count. When it climbs above a set threshold and stays there for several consecutive days, the new marrow is declared engrafted. Platelets and red cells follow their own, slower curves, so transfusions may continue for a while even after the neutrophil milestone.

Many centers use growth factor injections during this phase. These work by signaling the marrow to release and mature white cells faster, which can shorten the neutropenic window. Whether they are used, and for how long, is a decision for the transplant physician based on the type of transplant and the disease being treated.

What patients notice usually lags the numbers by a few days. The mouth heals first, often dramatically; a sore that made water painful on Monday can be nearly gone by Friday, because the lining of the mouth needs white cells and renewing tissue to repair itself. Fevers become less frequent. Appetite returns in flickers: a craving for something salty, then something sweet, then a real meal.

Energy is the laggard. Engraftment restores the blood factory, not the muscle lost to two or three weeks in bed or the reserves burned by fever. That gap between “counts recovered” and “I feel recovered” is the single most common source of frustration in the first months, and it is normal.

In allogeneic transplants, engraftment also marks the start of a second watch: the donor immune system is now active, and the team begins looking for early signs that it is reacting against the body it has moved into.

How long after a bone marrow transplant can you go home?

The question people ask most, and the answer with the widest range. MedlinePlus gives a typical hospital stay of around four to six weeks, or until blood counts have returned to safe levels and symptoms are controlled. The NHS describes stays ranging from a few weeks to a few months depending on the transplant type and how recovery goes. Autologous transplants usually mean shorter stays; donor transplants and cord blood transplants, longer ones.

Discharge is not a single number on a lab report. Teams generally look for a cluster of conditions at once:

• Neutrophils engrafted and holding, with transfusion needs manageable in an outpatient clinic
• No active fever or uncontrolled infection
• Ability to eat and drink enough by mouth, and to take medicines by mouth rather than through the catheter
• Nausea, diarrhea, and pain controlled with the regimen planned for home
• A caregiver available around the clock, and a home within reasonable travel distance of the transplant center

That last point surprises many families. Some programs ask patients who live far away to stay in nearby lodging for the first weeks after discharge, precisely because clinic visits may be scheduled two or three times a week and problems can escalate within hours.

Leaving the hospital is a milestone worth celebrating, but it is a transfer of care, not an ending. The central line usually stays in. The pharmacy bag is heavy. The MedlinePlus discharge guidance runs to pages of household precautions for good reason: the immune system that walks out the door is weeks old, and the outside world has not been sterilized.

What should I expect during the first 100 days after a bone marrow transplant?

Transplant teams talk about “Day +100” the way pilots talk about cruising altitude. It is not a finish line, but it marks the end of the steepest, most closely watched climb. Johns Hopkins and other major programs treat the first 100 days as the period of highest risk for serious infection and, in donor transplants, for acute graft-versus-host disease.

Life in this window has a particular texture. Clinic visits are frequent, often several times a week at first, tapering as counts steady. Each visit means blood work, a review of symptoms, a look at the skin and mouth, and possibly a transfusion or an intravenous medicine. The central catheter needs regular flushing and dressing changes, often done by the caregiver at home after training.

Medicines are numerous. In allogeneic transplants, immunosuppressant medicines hold the donor immune system in check while it learns to tolerate its new body; blood levels of some of these are checked regularly and doses adjusted by the team. Preventive anti-infective medicines cover bacteria, viruses, and fungi that a normal immune system would shrug off. None of this is negotiable at home, and a pill organizer plus a written schedule prevents the errors fatigue invites.

Restrictions are real: no crowds, no raw or undercooked foods, no gardening, no cleaning litter boxes, careful handwashing by everyone in the household. Most people are not cleared to return to work or school in this period.

By Day +100, if all is going well, the visits stretch out, some preventive medicines stop, and a reassessment of the underlying disease is typically done. The calendar keeps counting, but the numbers get bigger and the appointments fewer.

What is graft-versus-host disease, and why does it shape donor-transplant recovery?

Graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD, applies only to transplants using donor cells. It happens when the new immune system, doing exactly what immune systems do, identifies the recipient’s own tissues as foreign and attacks them. The NHS and Mayo Clinic both list it among the most significant risks of an allogeneic transplant.

Acute GVHD tends to appear in the first weeks to months, classically in three places: the skin, where it shows as a rash that may start on the palms, soles, ears, or shoulders; the gut, where it causes watery diarrhea, cramping, and nausea; and the liver, detected mostly through blood tests before it causes jaundice. Chronic GVHD can develop later, sometimes many months out, and may affect skin texture, joints, eyes, mouth, and lungs in ways that resemble autoimmune conditions.

Treatment relies on medicines that dampen immune activity, which is why patients with GVHD are watched even more closely for infection. The balance is delicate, and it belongs to the transplant physician: enough suppression to calm the reaction, not so much that the new immune system cannot protect against microbes.

A counterintuitive point deserves plain statement. The same donor immune activity that causes GVHD can also recognize and attack remaining diseased cells, an effect the Mayo Clinic describes as graft-versus-tumor. This does not make GVHD desirable, and it does not predict any individual outcome. It does explain why teams do not aim to switch the donor immune system off entirely.

For recovery, the practical lesson is vigilance without panic. A new rash, a change in stool, unexplained nausea, or itching should be reported the same day. Early GVHD is generally easier to manage than established GVHD, and the person who notices it first is almost always the patient or caregiver.

How long does fatigue last after a bone marrow transplant, and what does it really feel like?

If the hard days are week two, the hard months are the ones that follow discharge, and fatigue is the reason. It is the symptom patients mention most and the one friends understand least, because it does not look like anything.

This is not ordinary tiredness. Several forces stack up: the direct effect of conditioning treatment on every rapidly dividing tissue, anemia while red cells recover, muscle wasting from weeks of bed rest, poor sleep in a hospital that checks vital signs at 4 a.m., inadequate nutrition during the weeks when eating hurt, and the low-grade inflammation of a body rebuilding its immune system from scratch. Immunosuppressant and preventive medicines can add their own drag.

The Mayo Clinic and MedlinePlus both describe recovery as taking months to a year or longer, and fatigue is the symptom that most closely tracks that timeline. A common pattern: good mornings and empty afternoons for the first few months, then a slow lengthening of the good hours. Setbacks after a minor infection are normal and do not mean the ground has been lost.

What helps is unglamorous. Consistent wake and sleep times, even when nights are poor. Short walks every day rather than one heroic outing a week; research summarized by the NHS and Mayo Clinic consistently supports gentle, regular activity for treatment-related fatigue rather than total rest. Protein at every meal, because muscle cannot be rebuilt without it. Naps capped at a set length so they do not swallow the night.

What also helps is language. Telling the people around you “my battery is 30 percent and it does not recharge with coffee” is more useful than apologizing for canceling. Fatigue is a medical symptom of recovery, not a character flaw, and it eases on the marrow’s schedule, not the calendar’s.

What speeds recovery? Nutrition and movement, without the myths

Nothing in a health food store will make a transplanted marrow engraft faster. That statement is worth making bluntly, because vulnerable patients are targeted with confident claims about “immune-boosting” products. Supplements and herbal preparations can interfere with transplant medicines and, in some cases, carry microbial contamination; MedlinePlus discharge guidance and transplant programs generally ask that nothing of the kind be taken without the team’s explicit approval.

What the evidence does support is more ordinary and more effective.

Protein and calories are the raw material for repair. The gut lining, muscle, skin, and immune cells being rebuilt all need amino acids, and the weeks of mucositis often leave a deficit. Small, frequent meals suit a recovering appetite better than three large ones. A transplant dietitian, part of most programs, can tailor targets and troubleshoot taste changes, which are common and temporary.

Food safety matters more than food virtue in the early months. Teams typically advise thorough cooking of meat, eggs, and fish, avoiding unpasteurized dairy and juices, washing produce carefully or avoiding raw items, and skipping buffets and deli counters. The NHS and MedlinePlus both include this kind of guidance for people with weakened immunity. Ask your own team for their specific list, because recommendations vary somewhat between centers and evolve over time.

Movement is the other lever. Muscle is lost quickly in bed and regained slowly, and inactivity worsens fatigue, constipation, and mood. In hospital, walking the corridor several times a day and using a stationary pedal exerciser if the unit has one are realistic goals even on rough days. At home, a daily walk that gets slightly longer each week beats sporadic bursts. Many programs offer physical therapy referrals; accepting one is not an admission of weakness but a shortcut.

Hydration rounds it out. Diarrhea, fevers, and some medicines all pull fluid, and kidneys working hard to clear those medicines need it.

What speeds recovery? Infection prevention and the home environment

The fastest recoveries are often the ones with the fewest detours, and infections are the main detours. A new immune system is roughly as experienced as a newborn’s, and the outside world is full of things it has never met.

MedlinePlus discharge guidance for bone marrow transplant patients lays out a practical set of household measures, and most programs give a version of the same list:

• Hand washing for everyone in the home, before meals, after the bathroom, and after coming in from outside
• Avoiding crowds, and asking visitors with any cough, cold, or recent stomach bug to stay away
• No gardening, potting soil, or fresh flowers in standing water, which harbor molds
• No handling of pet litter, bird cages, or reptile tanks; someone else takes those jobs
• Keeping the central line site clean and dry, with dressing changes exactly as taught
• Steering clear of construction dust, renovation work, and mold-prone spaces
• Daily mouth care with a soft brush, because a healthy mouth is a closed door to bacteria
• Sun protection, since transplant medicines and GVHD can make skin far more sensitive

Masks in clinic waiting rooms and on public transport are widely advised in the early months; the CDC’s general guidance for people with weakened immune systems supports this approach in crowded indoor settings.

None of this is forever. Restrictions loosen as counts recover and immunosuppression tapers, typically in stages across the first year. The value of following them strictly early is that each avoided infection is a hospital readmission that does not happen, a week of antibiotics not needed, and a course of recovery that keeps its shape.

Ask your team, too, about which routine health protections may need to be rebuilt over time; the new immune system has no memory of what the old one learned, and programs have schedules for restoring that protection once it is safe.

Why the mind recovers on its own timeline, and why caregivers need a plan too

Around week eight, when the counts are behaving and the calls from friends have thinned out, a lot of patients hit something they did not expect: a low mood that feels out of proportion to the good news. Clinicians who work in transplant see it often enough to warn about it, and it makes sense. During the acute phase, adrenaline and a daily task list carry people. Afterward, the mind finally has room to register what happened.

Anxiety about counts, fear of relapse, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and sleep disruption are all common, as is a sense of being out of step with a world that has moved on. Some people experience a form of post-traumatic stress after intensive treatment. The Mayo Clinic and NHS both name emotional distress as an expected part of the transplant experience rather than an outlier.

Two things help measurably. The first is naming it early and asking the team for a referral; most transplant programs have psychologists or social workers who specialize in exactly this terrain. The second is peer connection, whether through a program’s survivor network or a moderated online community, where “Day +60 and I cried at a cereal commercial” is met with recognition rather than concern.

Caregivers carry their own version. Around-the-clock responsibility for medicines, catheter care, transport, and monitoring, often while managing work and a household, is a marathon that the discharge paperwork does not fully describe. Caregiver burnout is real and it affects patient safety, because an exhausted caregiver misses a temperature reading. Building a rota of backup helpers, scheduling deliberate breaks, and treating the caregiver’s sleep as a medical priority are not indulgences. They are part of the recovery plan.

What is life like after a bone marrow transplant, at one year and beyond?

Ask this question at Day +30 and it feels unanswerable. Ask it at Day +365 and most people have an answer, though rarely the one they expected.

MedlinePlus describes full recovery as taking six to twelve months or longer, and the Mayo Clinic frames it similarly, noting that the immune system can take a year or more to rebuild. Within that range, milestones tend to arrive in a recognizable order. The central line comes out. Immunosuppressant medicines, in donor transplants, are tapered and often stopped if GVHD allows. Preventive anti-infectives are withdrawn in stages. Dietary and social restrictions relax. Many people return to work or study part-time somewhere in the second half of the first year, though this varies enormously with the physical demands of the job and the course of recovery.

Follow-up does not end. Long-term transplant clinics monitor for late effects, which can include thyroid changes, bone density loss, cataracts, heart and lung effects from conditioning, and, in donor transplants, chronic GVHD. Fertility is often affected by high-dose conditioning, a subject worth raising with the team before treatment whenever possible and revisiting afterward. Regular screening for second cancers is part of standard long-term care.

Then there is the part no lab test captures. People describe a recalibrated sense of time, a shorter fuse for trivia and a longer one for the people who showed up. Some describe survivor’s guilt; some describe an almost embarrassing gratitude for ordinary mornings. Neither is required. The honest summary is that life after transplant is life, with more appointments and, often, a different set of priorities.

Recovery does not conclude on a date. It becomes the background rather than the foreground, and that shift is the milestone that matters most.

When should you call the transplant team or seek emergency care?

Recovery from a bone marrow transplant is one of the few situations in medicine where patients are asked to call about things that would be trivial in anyone else. A low-grade fever in a healthy adult is a nuisance. In someone whose neutrophils are newly minted, it may be the only early sign of a serious bloodstream infection, and MedlinePlus discharge guidance treats it as urgent.

Every program gives its own temperature threshold and a direct phone number that is answered around the clock. Keep that number on the refrigerator and in every family member’s phone. Then call, without waiting to see how things develop, for any of the following:

• Fever at or above your team’s stated threshold, or chills and shaking even without a measured fever
• Redness, swelling, pain, or discharge around the central line, or a line that will not flush
• A new rash, especially on the palms, soles, or trunk, or new itching
• Diarrhea that is new, worsening, watery, or bloody, or persistent vomiting that prevents medicines from staying down
• Bleeding that does not stop, unusual bruising, blood in urine or stool, or tiny red spots on the skin
• Cough, shortness of breath, or chest pain
• Yellowing of the skin or eyes, or dark urine
• Severe headache, confusion, new weakness, or difficulty speaking
• Pain, burning, or urgency with urination
• Inability to drink enough fluid, dizziness on standing, or passing very little urine

Call emergency services rather than the clinic for chest pain, severe breathing difficulty, sudden confusion, fainting, or heavy bleeding, and tell responders that you are a recent transplant recipient on immune-suppressing medicines. Bring your medication list and transplant card to any emergency department.

A guiding principle from transplant nurses: if you are debating whether something is worth a call, that debate is the signal to call. Teams would far rather hear about ten non-events than miss one event.

Frequently asked questions

What are the hardest days after a bone marrow transplant?

The second week, roughly Days +5 through +14, is typically the hardest. Conditioning chemotherapy has done its full damage by then, blood counts sit at their lowest, and the new marrow has not yet begun producing cells. Mouth sores, nausea, diarrhea, fevers, and profound fatigue tend to peak in this window. Symptoms are actively managed with supportive care, and engraftment usually begins soon after, which is why teams describe this stretch as expected rather than alarming.

How long after a bone marrow transplant can you go home?

Most people leave the hospital once engraftment is established, fever is absent, and they can eat, drink, and take medicines by mouth; MedlinePlus gives a typical stay of around four to six weeks. Autologous transplants often mean shorter stays, while donor and cord blood transplants may take longer. A caregiver available around the clock and housing within reach of the transplant center are usually required before discharge is approved.

What should I expect during the first 100 days after a bone marrow transplant?

Expect frequent clinic visits, often several a week at first, with blood tests, catheter care, and possible transfusions. This is the period of highest risk for serious infection and, after a donor transplant, acute graft-versus-host disease. Strict food safety, hand hygiene, and avoiding crowds are standard. Multiple preventive and, in donor transplants, immune-suppressing medicines are taken daily. By Day +100, visits usually thin out and some medicines are stopped if recovery is on track.

What is life like after a bone marrow transplant?

Life gradually returns to a recognizable shape over six to twelve months or longer, according to MedlinePlus and the Mayo Clinic. The central line comes out, medicines taper, restrictions relax, and many people resume work or study part-time within the first year. Long-term follow-up continues to monitor for late effects such as thyroid, bone, eye, and heart changes and, in donor transplants, chronic GVHD. Many survivors describe lasting fatigue that eases slowly and a changed sense of priorities.

How long does it take to fully recover from a bone marrow transplant?

Full recovery generally takes six to twelve months, and sometimes longer, per MedlinePlus and Mayo Clinic guidance. Blood counts recover within weeks, but the immune system can take a year or more to rebuild its ability to recognize and fight infections. Energy, muscle strength, and appetite return more slowly than the lab values suggest. Donor transplants, older age, complications such as GVHD, and infections during recovery can all extend the timeline.

What is engraftment and how will I know it has happened?

Engraftment is when the transplanted stem cells settle in the marrow and begin producing new blood cells, typically about two to four weeks after infusion. The team confirms it through daily blood tests showing neutrophils rising above a set threshold for several days in a row. Patients usually notice it a few days later as mouth sores heal, fevers ease, and appetite returns. Platelets and red cells recover more slowly, so transfusions may continue for a while.

What is graft-versus-host disease and when does it appear?

Graft-versus-host disease occurs after a donor transplant when the new immune system attacks the recipient’s own tissues. Acute GVHD usually appears within the first weeks to months, most often as a skin rash, watery diarrhea, or liver test changes. Chronic GVHD can develop later and may affect skin, joints, eyes, mouth, or lungs. It is treated with medicines that calm immune activity, adjusted by the transplant physician, and early reporting of new symptoms improves the chances of controlling it.

Can I speed up bone marrow transplant recovery?

You cannot make the marrow engraft faster, but you can avoid the setbacks that slow recovery. Daily gentle walking preserves muscle and reduces fatigue, protein at every meal supports tissue repair, strict food safety and hand hygiene prevent infections, and careful catheter care avoids line infections. Supplements and herbal products do not speed engraftment and may interact with transplant medicines, so nothing should be added without the team’s approval. Reporting symptoms early prevents small problems becoming readmissions.

When can I return to work after a bone marrow transplant?

Most people are not cleared to return to work or school during the first 100 days, and many resume part-time somewhere in the second half of the first year. The timing depends on the type of transplant, complications such as GVHD, the physical demands of the job, and exposure to crowds or the public. Your transplant team will advise based on your blood counts, immune recovery, and medicines; a phased return is common.

What symptoms after a bone marrow transplant need an urgent call?

Call the transplant team immediately for fever at or above your program’s threshold, chills, a new rash, new or worsening diarrhea, persistent vomiting, bleeding or unusual bruising, cough or shortness of breath, redness or discharge around the central line, yellowing skin, or confusion. Call emergency services for chest pain, severe breathing difficulty, fainting, or heavy bleeding, and tell responders you are a recent transplant recipient. When in doubt, call; teams prefer hearing about non-events to missing real ones.

References

• MedlinePlus: Bone marrow transplant
• MedlinePlus: Bone marrow transplant – discharge
• NHS: Stem cell and bone marrow transplants

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.