By Natasha Joseph

A 13-year-old girl who on Valentine's Day became the continent's youngest recipient of an artificial heart has finally got what she was waiting for - a real heart.

Maricelle Smith, 13, whose heart had been slowly enlarging and weakening for years because of a condition called cardiomyopathy, had a gruelling six-hour transplant operation in the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital on Wednesday night. A donor heart had been identified in the Eastern Cape that morning.

Willie Koen, head of the hospital's transplant section, said Maricelle had woken up the day after the operation and had been taken off ventilators on Friday morning.

Koen said the hospital's transplant co-ordinator had received a phone call from the Eastern Cape early on Wednesday saying that a donor heart was available.

He declined to disclose details about the donor, but said the heart was that of "a small adult" and had originated in the Eastern Cape.

Doctors had hoped to secure a child's heart for Maricelle because she was small and needed a small heart. Child donors are rare, however, with only one or two children's organs a year being donated.

"We hoped to get a child's heart... we took what we could get," said Koen.

He said Maricelle had been excited to hear that a heart had been found.

"I've never seen someone so keen to have an operation."

A doctor had travelled to the Eastern Cape on a private jet chartered by the Organ Donor Foundation to collect the heart on Wednesday, said Koen, and returned at 11pm the same day.

By then, a team of 10 had been in surgery for an hour and were ready to insert the new heart.

The operation was completed at 4am on Thursday.

Koen said the operation had been made easier by the presence of Maricelle's artificial heart.

The Berlin Heart, so-named because it was developed in Germany in the 1970s, was fitted to Maricelle on February 14 because she was desperately ill. It helped to kickstart the teenager's failing liver and kidneys.

Maricelle should spend the next week or two in hospital, said Koen, but in the long term she would "be able to live a normal life".

He said she might even be able to return to school - she is in Grade 7 - by the beginning of next term.

She would also be able to participate in sport and could continue dancing.

Maricelle's mother, Christel Smith, said she was "ecstatic" that a heart had been found for her daughter and the operation had been successful.

"I'm looking forward to taking her home," said Smith.

She and Maricelle lived in Kleinmond in the Overberg, but would remain in the city for "a while" so her daughter could be close to the hospital and her doctors, Smith said.

To become an organ donor, register at www.odf.org.za or telephone 0800 22 66 11 toll-free.

This article was originally published on page 3 of The Cape Times on February 25, 2008