Saving others one step at a time
Liver transplant recipient educates on rare disease
A bubbly North West woman’s life has been changed for the better after a successful liver transplant – and she is on a mission to help others.
Ipotseng Matebesi, 28, from Lotlhakane village outside Mahikeng, said she found a reason to live after receiving a liver from a donor.
Matebesi now runs a nonprofit organisation – Green Screen – that organises fun walks to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation.
Matebesi had liver failure at 23, and suffered various illnesses doctors could not diagnose.
Her body was constantly itchy and she would collapse.
“It was a painful moment of my life. I had to give up my dream of becoming a civil engineer because I was in and out of hospital.”
In 2012, a Klerksdorp doctor finally found what was wrong with her. She was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, where the body rejects the liver.
“You know people think that if your liver gets damaged, you might have been abusing alcohol. So I wondered why was I diagnosed with a disease meant for people who are consuming alcohol,” she said, adding she did not drink.
Doctors explained her illness was rare. She saw this as an opportunity to educate others.
Doctors told her she would have to wait for more than a year for a matching donor, but to her surprise, just two months after she was listed, a match was found. She was listed on July 2012 and had the surgery in September .
... to me it was like God wanted to give me a second chance. Ipotseng Matebesi ORGAN TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT
“I felt blessed, to me it was like God wanted to give me a second chance. He wanted me to live to change lives,” Matebesi said.
She said she was terrified of the procedure.
After losing both her parents as a youngster, she was not ready to die. “I then thought maybe it was time to follow my parents, but something kept on telling me that I must hold on,” she said. “For now I am focusing on making sure that those who are going through what I went through stay positive and have hope.”
She has not had any complications since.
Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital transplant coordinator Anja Meyer said out of the seven organs that can be donated, kidneys were most in demand.
Meyer said currently the country had about 4 300 people waiting for organs and corneas .
She said a family could decide what they would like to donate.
According to the Donor Foundation of South Africa, the process of becoming a donor is easy.
One has to register online or call the organisation’s toll-free line on 0800-226-611. The organisation will send you a card to fill in and carry in your wallet. “We will also send you a sticker to put on your ID and on your driver’s licence,” the website states.