Welcome
Free Virtual Peer Support for Liver Transplant Recipients
Life after a liver transplant can include gratitude, adjustment, uncertainty, physical changes, and emotional shifts. The Living Room is a relaxed, trauma-informed virtual peer-support space for adult liver transplant recipients across Canada to connect, share stories, navigate common post-transplant concerns, and celebrate milestones together.
Family members are welcome to attend alongside a recipient.
Your Facilitator
Scott Harrison RN RP RCC CNP MA MACP CCTP-II
Hello and welcome. My name is Scott Harrison. I am a Registered Nurse, Registered Psychotherapist, Registered Clinical Counsellor, Certified Nurse Psychotherapist and a specialist in complex trauma. More importantly - I am a liver transplant survivor.
In 2022, I experienced sudden autoimmune liver failure. Eleven months later, I received the transplant that saved my life.
As both a healthcare professional and a transplant recipient myself, I bring a perspective that's rare to find in one person — I've sat in the waiting room, and I've also spent decades understanding the clinical side of what happens next.
I know, from the inside, that the journey after transplant is rarely a straight line. Ongoing anxiety, body image changes, the daily reality of managing medications, and the slow work of adjusting to life with a new organ — these aren't setbacks or signs of doing it wrong. They're simply part of what recovery actually looks like. It can be a lot to carry, both for those of us who've been through transplant and for the people who love and support us along the way.
I created The Living Room because I understand that lived experience and clinical knowledge, held together, create something neither can offer alone: a space where you don't have to explain what post-transplant life really feels like, because someone in the room already knows.
What the group offers
Peer connection and mutual support
There's a particular kind of understanding that only comes from someone who's actually been there. In this group, you'll connect with others who know what it's like to wait for a transplant, live through the surgery, and navigate everything that comes after — without needing to explain the parts that are hard to put into words.
Space to Discuss the Emotional and Practical Realities of Life After Transplant
Post-transplant life isn't just about lab results and medication schedules — though those matter too. This is a space to talk about all of it: the practical logistics, the emotional weight, and everything in between that doesn't always come up in a follow-up appointment.
Shared Coping Ideas and Encouragement
Everyone finds their own way through recovery, and often the most useful ideas come from someone who's already figured out what helped them. This group is a place to trade strategies, offer encouragement, and learn from each other's experience.
A Respectful Place to Acknowledge Gratitude, Uncertainty, Loss, Resilience, and Change
Transplant recovery holds a lot of contradictions at once — deep gratitude alongside real grief, hope alongside uncertainty, resilience alongside exhaustion. There's room here for all of it, without needing to pick just one feeling or perform positivity you don't feel.
Facilitated Conversation with Clear Boundaries
Every session is guided with care, keeping the space respectful, focused, and safe for everyone. Clear boundaries around confidentiality and participation mean you can show up and share as much or as little as feels right for you.
What the group is not
The Living Room is not psychotherapy, medical or nursing care, crisis support, a substitute for transplant follow-up, or a place for diagnosis, medication recommendations, or treatment advice.
For medical questions or changes in your health, contact your transplant team or other healthcare provider.
Participation Agreement
These agreements exist to help everyone feel safe enough to show up as they are.
These aren't rules. They are more about the kind of care we try to extend to one another.
- Speak from your own experience, and allow room for others' experiences to differ from yours. What's true for you doesn't have to be true for everyone.
- Share only what feels right for you. Passing is always welcome — you're never obligated to speak.
- Avoid giving medical, medication, or treatment advice. This is a peer space, not a clinical one; questions about your health are best directed to your care team.
- Use respectful, non-judgmental language, especially around choices and experiences that differ from your own.
- Join from a private, focused setting — not while driving or in a public space where others can overhear.
- Arrive on time when possible, and stay for the full session if your schedule allows, so the group can settle into real conversation together.
- Help create a space where every participant can speak and be heard — this is a shared responsibility, not just the facilitator's.
