A decrease of 25% in 2020.As a substantial number of medical activities, organ transplants have been strongly impacted by the COVVI-19 pandemic.4417 transplants were thus carried out in 2020 against 5901 in 2019.Maïfée battered knows something about it, she who was chosen by the Trans -Form association - which raises awareness of organ donation - as godmother in 2021 in order to convince the French to give their organs.If she herself had no organ transplantation, she was chosen by the organization for her personal fight.Because Maïfée, 81, was born with an extremely rare congenital anomaly: its main viscera and organs are reversed.Le Figaro met her.

To read Aussicomment works organ donation?

LE FIGARO.- When did you discover that your heart was upside down?

Battle.- I must have been six years old.When my parents divorced, my mother took me to France because I was born in Africa, in Congo.By trying to listen to my heart, my mother worried because she heard no sound, she thought there was a concern.So, we went to the hospital when we arrived.Doctors discovered that my heart was reversed, it is on the right and not on the left as the vast majority of people.I have a rare anomaly, which is called inverted situs.

What exactly does that mean?

To put it simply, all my organs are reversed, in mirror in relation to their usual position.My heart is therefore located, as I said, on the right side of the chest.But that's not all, most of my organs are actually reversed.I learned it when I had appendicitis when I was seven/eight years old.The doctors first put me in radios and they finally operated on the left, realizing that my organs were reversed.While my brother was operated at the same time but on the right side (laughs).My liver is also on the left, for example.The doctors who followed me told me that it gave them a head to look at my ultrasounds!

This malformation had to strongly impact your life ...

I did not experience it as something terrible.Doctors told me that I certainly couldn't have children.I had three.Each pregnancy, on the other hand, we had to advance the work.And then, it is true that I could never move to the countryside as I wanted, because I had to be always near a hospital and a cardiologist.

But otherwise I was still in good shape.At the time, I made my garden, I did almost all the trades, the last one was also a teacher.I loved it, I had finally found the job that suited me.And then, six months later I made a stroke, I was 50 years old, and I wanted to the whole earth.My cardiologist told me afterwards that problems generally start after 50 years.A clot was formed in my skull because the heart was struggling.

To see too - can we be grafted again after a rejection?The response of Pr Maurice Mimoun

Is that when you decide to have an operation?

Yes.After my stroke, I could no longer speak or write.I was paralyzed on one side but by dint of will, I managed to recover everything.On the other hand, I could no longer bear chronic fatigue.I spent my time between my bed and the wheelchair, it was horror.I couldn't walk, my heart was too tired.So, I made an appointment with a cardiologist who turned me to professor Élie Alain Serraf.He operated me with an open heart and changed a valve me.I am not transplanted, I was not changed my heart but he repaired it to me.

Normally, today, babies who are born with an anomaly like mine are operated very early.Even at fifty, I found myself hospitalized in a pediatric unit.The intervention lasted between seven and eight hours and then I stayed practically ten days in intensive care.The operation was very risky, but I couldn't stay like this.

What has this surgical intervention changed for you?

I was able to relive.After the intervention, I was able to climb the coast to go to the hospital cafeteria, for example.It was 13 years ago.I have a tired heart again but I am 81 years old, there is nothing left to do.We can't take me anymore today.You have to live with your time!

Today, you make aware of organ donation as a godmother of the Trans-Form association.How did you come to this fight?

The association and their partner, the company SAP, asked me to be godmother this year and I accepted with great pleasure because the gift of organs is vital.I was not transplanted but I underwent a substantial cardiac operation which allowed me to relive.It is absolutely necessary to raise awareness of organ donation, so I take my role very seriously.I am responsible for convincing people to give part of their flesh.This is not obvious.When you have a motorcyclist who has an accident, who is young, we will see the family to ask him if they want to give the heart for example.But it's still a part of their loved one, it's not easy.And then religion also takes into account.This is what I am confronted with.Sometimes I manage to convince them, but not always.

I am also the godmother of a literary competition* to raise awareness of organ donation through poems, drawings, small texts on the theme "a link that unites us".I am in the jury, so I will be able to read all these writings which will then be edited and published in a booklet.The works can be exhibited in town halls but also distributed during the heart race, a solidarity race for organ transplantation.

Besides, writing is particularly important for you ...

I actually wrote a book (my heart upside down, editor's note) on my story, pushed by my doctor in particular.Relearn to write after my stroke was extremely difficult so I am very proud of this book.It did me a lot of good to write it but arrived at the game on my stroke I had a hard time telling it.I couldn't transcribe it, it was still anchored in me, even ten years later.Even today, it always disrupts me a little to talk about it.It is such a shock to be paralyzed, to no longer be able to speak, to write.So when the book was released in December, it was really a great joy, a great adventure.

*To participate in the competition on awareness of organ donation, send your works before September 12 to info@trans-form.org

To see also - in France, more than 63.000 people live with a grafted organ