Hélène Campbell breathing on her own

Lung recipient walking a week after transplant

“I’m so happy I can breathe!”

Those words were spoken by Hélène Campbell on Saturday, after the ventilator assisting the new double-lung transplant recipient was removed.

“Oh my gosh, what a great day! No more tubes, I can breathe!” Campbell, 20, wrote in a tweet.

“She was smiling from ear to ear with its removal,” her parents wrote on her website alungstory.ca. “She can now whisper, sounding like Darth Vader with a case of laryngitis and has the craziest ‘big hair’ we’ve ever seen!” Campbell has been walking around the intensive care unit at the Toronto General Hospital, after her transplant a week ago. The organ donation crusader and international headline-maker has been sitting in a chair after each walkabout.

Progress, as warned, is up and down, her parents, Alan and Manon, shared with the thousands of supporters following the Ottawa family’s journey through the world of organ donation and transplant on Twitter, Facebook and website.

Sleep seems to be the biggest challenge for the young woman, who is being credited with inspiring thousands to register as donors on Ontario’s organ and tissue registry beadonor.ca. “The business of the (intensive care) unit, the equipment noise and . . . the strong anti-rejection medications make it difficult for her to sleep,” her parents wrote.