Every day in the hospital is the same, and time blurs from one day to another. Days turn into weeks, and weeks into months; when you suffer from a chronic disease and have a major surgery, like an organ transplant, it takes months to recuperate.

Although time moves slowly in the hospital, when you have many teams of specialists, there is a constant revolving door of nurse practitioners and doctors throughout the day, asking you questions, examining, probing, and poking you. Weekends are a nice respite from the busy weekday traffic.

Jen’s hospital stay and recovery after her second double-lung transplant include continuous IV medications and feeds through a GJ tube, insulin, and two dozen pills. Additionally, she takes pills for chronic pain and nausea following her transplant surgery. Jen also has daily sessions with OT and PT therapists to help her stand, walk, and do everyday tasks that she hasn’t been able to do for herself since her chronic organ rejection disease progressed.

Jen is doing well with her therapists, and her doctors plan to have her transition from the hospital ICU to the NYU RUSK inpatient rehabilitation program this coming week. There, she’ll receive holistic and integrated physical therapy resources to get back on her feet and start the next chapter of her life!

Until then, Hospital Time continues to tick away slowly.