INTERVIEW
"A very long process, from the depths of darkness to the light." Thus Nathalie Rheims describes her fierce fight against a genetic pathology of the kidneys that "decimated" the women of her family. On the eve of the world organ donation and transplant day on 17 October, she tells Nathalie Lévy's microphone about her battle with the disease and the transplant that saved her life.
"I was in denial"
"I saw my mother spend 25 years on dialysis, my rand-mother and sister die the same year ... Unconsciously, I knew what was going to happen, but I decided to be in denial, "she says. The call to reality was brutal. "The day I realized it was the day I fell into a coma." Today, Nathalie Rheims calls on the contrary to prevention, and monitoring, "it's very important," she says. "The kidneys, we do not think about it at all, yet they irrigate the entire human body.The day they stop working, nothing works anymore."
Writer Nathalie Rheims was inspired by her own epic to write her latest novel, The Kidneys and Hearts (Editions Leo Scheer). She describes the sensation of being "between two worlds", which inhabits her during the weeks when her vital prognosis remains engaged. "It's a story about hope, about despair, and about this extraordinary adventure of organ donation."
25,000 people waiting for a transplant
In the book as in life, his donor is a young man met by chance. Their link, she says, is "twin", witnessing a "crazy attachment". "When I entered the intensive care unit, he immediately decided that he would give me a kidney, if it was compatible." A choice that saved his life, but is not inconsequential. "This gift has not changed our relationship, but I am aware at every moment that I live with this other, this piece of him in me," she says.
Today, Nathalie Rheims says she is "as good as possible". After the transplant, the fight of the patients is not finished yet. "Anti-rejection treatments are not easy every day, but from where I come ..." In France, nearly 25,000 people are waiting for an organ donation, and more than 63,000 people live through a transplanted organ.