Muhammad Khalifa, 31, a young Jordanian man who had a heart transplanted in his body, and then noticed strange changes;

He preferred plain coffee and loved koshary, and it turned out that the late woman, who had a heart, liked the same thing.

Ali Muhammad Khalifa's feelings and desires changed to become a mixture of emotions, after two different hearts lived inside his body.

The story of Muhammad is not fiction, but it is not clearly supported by scientific facts, although there are studies on the subject.

A study published in the "Medical Hypotheses" in 2020 by Mitchell B. Lister indicates that personality changes after heart transplantation may occur, which have been reported for decades, such as:

  • Changes in preferences.

  • Changes in feelings and mood.

  • Memories of the donor's life.

The study said that it is assumed that the acquisition of the personality characteristics of the donor by the transplanted heart occurs through the transfer of cellular memory, and it includes types of cellular memory, epigenetic memory, DNA memory, RNA memory, and protein memory.

Other possibilities also exist, such as memory transfer via intracardiac neural memory and active memory.

Myocardial performance does not exceed 10%.

The story began in 2013 when Khalifa was working as an employee in a company in the Kingdom, and he was subjected to a state of suffocation and a coma that lasted 10 hours. The medical diagnosis showed that he was suffering from a blockage in the coronary artery and fluid accumulation on the lung;

due to weakness of the heart muscle.

Subsequently, the Jordanian young man spent several days under treatment at Prince Hamzah Hospital in the capital, Amman (government), then was transferred to the Heart Center in the Medical City (a military hospital), where he stayed for 24 days.

After that, Khalifa was discharged from the hospital, and his heart muscle performance was no more than 10%, amid medical warnings calling for avoiding effort, pressure and salty foods, and sticking to 6 tablets in the morning and evening.

He is silent for a while, as he talks to the Anatolia correspondent, who visited him at his home in one of the suburbs of the capital, Amman, and then spoke again as if he did not want to forget any detail of a bitter life experience he had gone through, and the eyes of his father (Muwafaq Khalifa) were watching him with all care and tenderness.

Muhammad explains that he faced a great challenge in 2014, when he wanted to prove that he was a normal person despite his illness, as he insisted on accompanying his friends on hiking trips to mountainous and archaeological areas.

This led to the deterioration of his health, so he returned to the hospital, and was discharged with the same previous medical warnings, foremost of which was the lack of stress and fatigue.

"My mood became complicated and my disturbances increased, and I was more desperate than smoking, to lose hope that I would get treatment," these words stifled by pain, adds Khalifa.

He continued, "As a result, my family tried to get me out of my psychological state, so I enrolled in a typographic design and television production course, and after that I started working."

He pointed out that "the psychological pressure led to a high percentage of fluid on the lung, and I entered an emergency situation, and the doctors expected that I would not live long, and they said that I needed a heart transplant."

The crisis intensified for Muhammad, and in early September 2018, he decided to leave his family’s home to stay with one of his friends, but he returned after 5 days.

Prayer and soliloquy

Immediately after his return, the owner of the story performed ablution, and prayed to be alone with his Lord and speak to him, "I resorted to my Lord, and cried a lot while I was prostrating, and I called on him from the severity of my pain to take me to him or to treat me, then I read Surat Al-Mulk, and I went to my room."

And Muhammad continued, "After half an hour, the miracle was, as a call came to my father from my doctor, treating and supervising my case, Dr. Razi Abu Anza, to say that a heart donor was available and he was ready."

He added, "Despite my mother's refusal, I went immediately, and my spirits were very high, and I held my father and mother's hands, and I made them laugh a lot, and I realize that they are crying from within."

And he added, "The heart arrived at the hospital through a convoy, a car in front of the ambulance and another behind it, to ensure its arrival as quickly as possible, because the heart stops beating after 12 hours."

And he points out that "the surgery lasted two and a half hours, and a large number of doctors participated in it."

And he added, "When I got out of the operation, the first thing I asked was to see my mother and a glass of water, and I cried a lot when I drank, because I felt that the water entered my whole body, after I drank it with difficulty before the operation."

And he continues, "I stayed in the hospital for 4 months under observation, without touching anyone, for fear of catching any viruses, because my immunity was low, and I stayed for the same period at home with the same procedures."

"I knew the donor after the operation, an English language teacher who died at the age of 38 as a result of a brain disease, and she had a twin sister," he says, stricken.

In an interesting style and narrated as a graphic novel, he points out that there are important details in his story, saying, "I did not drink coffee and after the operation I started drinking it, and I asked my father to bring me koshary."

Muhammad did not care about these changes, but he was interested in getting to know the donor's family, stressing that he felt an unprecedented relief upon reaching their place of residence.

"When I entered and met her mother, I felt the mother's eagerness, and her twin sister did not arrive and did not know we were there, but she said that she felt the presence of someone close to her at home," he says.

Koshary and plain coffee

And when they talked about their donor daughter, they mentioned that she loved koshary and black coffee, and here Muhammad started thinking about the transformations that happened to him after the heart transplant.

After that visit, Khalifa turned into a member of the donor's family, as he lives with their daughter's heart despite the difference in the body, stressing that what he was feeling and going through from situations that were not scientifically proven, in reference to his participation with the feelings of the late girl and what was in her heart.

The Jordanian young man cites some evidence of this, noting that he once suffered from a state of great psychological distress, so he called the sister of the twin donor, to confirm that she suffers from psychological pressure due to a problem in her work.

Muhammad draws attention to the repetition of the situation with him, but in the opposite way;

The twin called him to ask him about the reasons for the distress he was going through, only to be surprised by the question, because he was already suffering from it.

And out of respect for its people and their position on the reward and reward from God;

For donating their daughter's heart and helping the young man to live, Muhammad did not categorically mention her name.

In a strange situation he went through, Muhammad says that he went out one day with his sister’s husband, who works as a director of activities to organize a specific program in a school, but he indicated that he entered into a severe crying fit, and a general collapse in his body for no reason, only to find out later that the school he entered It is the same school as the donor.