Hendrika van Wyk first discovered she had undergone a heart transplant when she woke up in an intensive care unit in Groote Schuur Cape Town Academic Hospital.
That was 30 years ago today, when Van Wyk was just 20 years old.
Now at 50, she is believed to be the longest heart transplant survivor in South Africa.
At the time of the transplant Van Wyk weighed only 34kg.
She was born with a weakened heart. After an infection of the Coxsackie virus further damaged her heart, she was left tired and ill all the time.
At the age of 20, Van Wyk was told her only option if she wanted to live was to have a heart transplant.
She travelled from Johannesburg and arrived in Cape Town on November 19 1984. A day later a match was found and she underwent surgery.
All she knows about the person who saved her life is that he was 21.
Last night Dr Graham Cassel, the cardiologist who treats Van Wyk, celebrated with her and her family to mark her "30th birthday", referring to the age of her transplanted heart.
"It is very rare worldwide for heart transplant patients to live as long as 30 years after the operation," said Cassel.
The cardiologist said better medicines given to prevent the body from rejecting transplanted organs were now prolonging transplant patients' lives.
Certainly, Van Wyk has outlived the odds, but there have been setbacks over the years: at seven months pregnant she miscarried her child because of the medication.
She decided not to try to fall pregnant again and instead adopted a five-month-old child in 1996.
The child is now writing matric exams.
Cassel said Van Wyk was among the lucky few for whom a donor was found quickly.
Currently, the doctor said, patients die on waiting lists because there are so few organ donors.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
