Double- lung recipient ‘ dances’ on Ellen show
TORONTO — Helene Campbell, whose organ donation awareness campaign netted her an unexpected appearance three months ago on Ellen Degeneres’s daytime talk show, Ellen, was a return guest Friday for the show’s season finale.
In a Skype interview from her Toronto apartment where she is recovering from her double- lung transplant, Campbell thanked Degeneres for her support and surprised her with a Dance Dare video.
“I’m dancing and laughing and even brushing my teeth without feeling shortness of breath,” Campbell told Degeneres and her cheering studio audience. “It’s amazing. I can laugh again.” Campbell said she could even sing again in her post- transplant “Louis Armstrong voice.”
The 21- year- old Ottawa woman was waiting in Toronto for a double- lung transplant last February when she received a surprise Skype call from the popular TV host, whom Campbell had been lobbying to use her celebrity to urge people to go online and register to be organ donors.
Campbell, suffering idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, was inspired to approach Degeneres by her show’s Dance Dare contest, noting that she and other hopeful recipients were unable to participate until they received organ transplants. The contest challenges viewers to dance in public, preferably behind unsuspecting strangers.
On Friday, Campbell showed a video she recorded of herself secretly dancing behind shoppers at a ChaptersIndigo store in Toronto.
In Friday’s five- minute interview, Degeneres said she was inspired by Campbell’s “attitude and enthusiasm.”
“Listen to you — 21 years old and so articulate,” Degeneres said. “I promise you I will keep talking about this.”
She ended by promising to fly Campbell and her mother, Manon, to California for a live appearance on the show when the two could dance together in person.