'Heart of gold' recipient meets donor's daughters

CTV Toronto: Woman meets daughters of heart donor Two women who lost their father got to hear his heartbeat again at an emotional meeting with the woman whose life was saved by it.

Julie Lyons has a name for her heart. She calls it Bob, named after the Nova Scotia man who donated the vital organ to her after he died -- a gift she says gave her a second shot at life.

On Friday, Lyons had the chance to finally meet the daughters of her heart’s namesake, Bob Cox, when they all met up in Toronto.

“You hear him? He’s there,” said Lyons, pressing a stethoscope to her chest as Carolyn Cox-Disney listens in.

“That’s awesome,” said Cox-Disney, taking Lyons by the hand.

“Isn’t it?” Lyons said.

Lyons was born with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a congenital disorder that eventually led to congestive heart failure. In 2011, she was in a Halifax hospital in desperate need of a heart transplant.

The life-saving organ donation ended up coming from within the same building. Around the same time, Cox was rushed to the same Halifax hospital after he suffered a traumatic fall at his home in Nova Scotia. At the age of 57, he was pronounced dead.

“Everybody said he had a heart of gold,” said Belynda Garcia, who lives in Calgary with her sister. “He would give you the shirt off of his back.”

His family decided to donate his organs to someone in need.

“We were really surprised, we just thought, okay we’ll say yes because why not right? He could save somebody’s life,” Garcia said.

A nurse delivered the good news to Lyons.

“One of the nurses came and said, ‘You’re not getting your medications tonight. They think they have a heart for you,” she said.

The surgery was a success, and Lyons said it gave her back her life.

“I never, ever in a million years would’ve thought I would feel like this. Because I thought life as I know it is over. I just won’t be able to do any of those things that I love to do – and I can,” she said.

The transplant process is typically kept secret, so meet-ups between a donor’s family and a recipient are rare. But a relative of Cox heard Lyons’ story and noticed some similarities. The two families began to correspond and made the connection. After five years of correspondence, they decided to meet in Toronto.

Before the meet-up, Lyons said she was feeling “a little bit nervous” but had prepared what she wanted to tell Cox’s daughters.

“Thank you. Thank you for giving me my life back,” she said.

Lyons and Cox’s daughters plan to spend the next few days getting to know each other.

With a report from CTV Toronto