'My outlook going forward is much different. I'm more appreciative of life itself and the smaller things of life. I'm not in a rush anymore,' says Aurora's Steve Mitchell Throughout the summer of 2019, Steve Mitchell waited for a new heart. The longtime Aurora resident had been admitted to Southlake Health in March, after his health had deteriorated. He was struggling with advanced stage heart failure. Mitchell was transferred to Toronto General Hospital, and once his condition stabilized, he was released back home to wait for a donor. “I was told I needed a heart transplant in order to live,” he said. “I was going to die.” “Originally when I asked in April, I said, ‘How much time do I have left?’ And all the doctors but one said it was hard to predict. One doctor said based on everything he'd seen, he was giving me till Labour Day of 2019.” Mitchell spent that whole summer of 2019 waiting for the call, until the phone rang on Sept. 18. They had found a donor match. “I got my heart transplant on Sept. 19 of 2019,” he recalled. “So that just shows you how dire the situation was.” Family history of heart ailments Heart health was something Mitchell had grappled with for many years. His mother’s father had died of a heart attack, and when Mitchell was 24, he was diagnosed with tachycardia, a fast heart rate condition. Two of his siblings were also diagnosed with the condition. “It was just a real eye-opener,” said Mitchell. The condition was managed with medication over the years and in 2003, Mitchell had a pacemaker installed “as a backup.” Around summer 2018, Mitchell's health started to decline, with irregular rhythms that left him feeling “sluggish and out of breath.” Later that year, Mitchell met some surviving members of the Humboldt Broncos team, who were meeting with the Aurora Tigers in the wake of the bus crash on April 6 that killed 16 people. After Aurora Cable Television was sold to Rogers in 2008, Mitchell became a videographer for the Tigers, and he documented the team's visit. “It was an honour to meet them. This was before I even knew I needed an organ myself,” said Mitchell. Mitchell posed for a photograph with Aurora Mayor Tom Mrakas on Green Shirt Day, April 7 of this year, holding a Logan Boulet jersey, one of the Humboldt Broncos players who died in that tragic incident. Boulet had signed his organ donor card just weeks before the incident, saving six people with his organ and tissue donations. Since his transplant operation, Mitchell has been keen to raise awareness for organ donation and its importance. “That's the least I can do as an organ recipient,” he said. Recovery, resilience, and looking ahead After his successful operation, recovery was a lengthy process, further complicated when Mitchell contracted COVID-19 early in 2023. Recovering from the virus left him “totally wiped out for two months” and has seen Mitchell have to become more cautious, especially during the winter months. “I'd rather slow down than not be around anymore,” he said. “So, it's just an adjustment period. As they say, a heart transplant is not a cure, it's a treatment. And so, because I'm immune-compromised for the rest of my life, I just have to be careful.” “I just take life a day at a time now. I tell people I'm living on bonus time,” he said. “I've been blessed with a good life and good friends and good family, and so my outlook going forward is much different. I'm more appreciative of life itself and the smaller things of life. I'm not in a rush anymore.” Mitchell said he had received lots of support from family, medical teams and the local hockey community. Mitchell said he's thankful to all these people, as well as his donor. But he said the real-life organ donor process “is not like the Hollywood story, where you get reunited.” “I'm obviously curious as to who my donor was but I have to respect their privacy, too,” he said. “I'm very sensitive to the family of the donor. They lost a loved one. The day that my life was saved was also the day that their loved one passed and so that's always in the back of your mind. You're happy they signed their donor card, but you're sad because someone lost their life.” But Mitchell’s new lease on life has also meant he’s set to see major family milestones. “I could have very easily died in 2019 and my daughter is getting married in May,” he said. “That would have been a terrible thing for me to have missed things like that in life.”