Helene Campbell, the 21-year-old double-lung transplant recipient who captured the world's attention as she waited for a donor, appeared on Ellen DeGeneres' TV talk show on Friday, making good on a promise to dance on the popular program after she had recovered from surgery.
Campbell, her lungs failing from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, was in Toronto when she received a surprise Skype call from Ellen DeGeneres last February.
During their conversation, DeGeneres invited Campbell to appear on her show whenever she'd sufficiently recovered from the transplant she was awaiting at the time.
Campbell returned to "The Ellen Show" via Skype on Friday, thanking DeGeneres for supporting her during the difficult procedure.
"You have been a vehicle and driven this awareness to an extra level, and got that many more people to sign up," Campbell said during her appearance. "On an average day in the States 18 people die not receiving the right organs. And what you have done has really, hopefully decreased that number."
The appearance also included clips of Campbell dancing on an escalator in a shopping mall and a book store while wearing a pair of underwear from DeGeneres' clothing line.
Degeneres expressed amazement at Campbell's recovery, after a life-saving surgery and her advocacy for organ donations captured the attention of celebrities and the public around the world.
"You look fantastic," DeGeneres said. "I cannot believe it's been only seven weeks since you received your double-lung transplant."
"I feel so good," Campbell told DeGeneres. "It's unbelievable how amazing this has been."
Campbell promised to appear in studio as soon as she is well enough to fly to Los Angeles, and DeGeneres said they would dance together.
Campbell went under the knife on April 6, and is now recovering from the surgery in Toronto. She can't fly to California anytime soon, since lung transplant recipients have to wait between six months and a year before taking to the skies.
During an earlier appearance on CTV's Canada AM, Campbell was coy when asked to confirm the "surprise" appearance on the show that airs at 2 p.m./1 p.m. CT on CTV and again at 4 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Two.
"Maybe," she said, betraying little beyond a broad smile.
Campbell's dance moves have already become a symbol of organ donation advocacy, and she even performed the arm-waving dance with doctors and family members during a press conference to update the public on her condition Thursday.
During her appearance on CTV's Canada AM Friday, her first one-on-one television interview since undergoing the transplant surgery, Campbell said she came up with the dance step during her trip to Barcelona last year, and hopes she can one day produce an awareness-raising video featuring the dance.
"I'd love for the world to join in and do it with me," she said, inviting people to send her videos of themselves recreating the moves.
Whether that dream comes true or not, Campbell says she'll never stop advocating for others awaiting their own second chance at life.
She's incredibly grateful too, even if her new lease on life is "not always rainbows and butterflies."
Throughout those hard times, she said that a "positive feedback loop" has kept her going.
"Anytime I felt I could get down there was support from so many people across the world," she said recalling how her story, chronicled on her personal blog and Twitter, not only caught Ellen's attention, but also that of teen pop star Justin Bieber.
"Even with all the support it gets hard, so I can only imagine the difficulties other people go through at times like this," Campbell said, explaining that her experience has taught her valuable lessons about the power of compassion.
"I'm so thankful to the donor family who, in a hard time ... were able to think of someone else," Campbell said in the interview from Toronto General Hospital.
"I will definitely hold onto that for the rest of my life."
With at least 4,500 Canadians waiting for a potentially life-saving transplant, Campbell is on a mission to encourage everyone across the country to register their consent to be an organ donor.
However she's able to continue raising awareness for the issue, Campbell says she's determined to honour the gift she's been given.
The moment when the significance of her experience really sunk in occurred when she was undergoing a routine post-op bronchoscopy, during which a camera let her see he growing connections between her own tissue and her new lungs.
"I will never, ever forget the moment where I met my donor in my body and it became so real to me," she said. "I was breathing because of someone else, and I was able to do the little things and the big things because of this gift."
Campbell hopes to head back to her Ottawa home sometime in the next three to six months.
