HANDOUT / AFP
Illustrative photo of a surgical operation for a kidney transplant.
HEALTH – ” Back to school in September 2025. » Which was still « unimaginable » a few months ago is now “possible” for little Mathéo’s family. The result of a (very) long wait, a double liver and kidney transplant was successfully carried out on a two-year-old child. An unprecedented intervention in France for a patient of this age.
Mathéo has been hospitalized since January 2024 at the Necker hospital in Paris while awaiting this double transplant. Told by West Francethis unique operation in France had become essential for the young boy, suffering from a rare genetic disease: methylmalonic acidemia.
An illness that poisoned Mathéo's body by preventing his body from properly absorbing proteins. Diagnosed very early, the child had to be admitted to hospital at the beginning of the year, his condition requiring this double transplant from the same donor. The start of a long wait for him and his parents.
Successful transplants, but…
« We received the call for the transplant on August 31tells Émeline, Mathéo’s mother to the regional daily. On September 1, he was operated on for thirteen hours. »
“We were stunned to receive the call we had been waiting for almost a year”remembers the mother. “He was connected everywhere, with big scars and people watching him all the time, it was impressive », she adds, thinking back to the moment they were able to see him again after this long operation.
And although the operation went well, Mathéo encountered several complications after his double transplant. Starting with a double return to the operating room because of his blood circulation. At the beginning of October, a first return home was finally organized for the boy. Except that again, everything does not go as planned.
His medications anti-rejection » prevent him from sitting and cause him “ excessive tremors “. New complications which will ultimately delay the final return home, in Maine-et-Loire, in mid-October.
“Daily life remains as heavy as before”
Despite a long-awaited return to daily life, the obstacle course is clearly not over for Mathéo and his parents. Because in addition to the numerous constraints » for a child of his age, he must go once a week to the Necker hospital and the Tours hospital center.
« He is not allowed to use public transport, to see too many people, especially children… “, lists his mother, who also reveals that her liver transplant forces her to become “ vegetarian “. But it doesn't stop there. “The liver is regenerating, it will be fine. The kidney is a sword of Damocles, we don't know when his body will have decided that it no longer wants it. »
While waiting for the moment when Mathéo will need a new kidney, he will still be able to return to a normal life by next year. Doctors say they are confident at this stage that he will return to school for the first time in September 2025. In the meantime, this “energetic child” requires constant attention. With no less than 20 medications to take per day. “ We are at home, but everyday life remains as heavy as before », admits his mother, who says she is ready, if she is compatible, to give him a kidney next time.
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