“I had lost the sense of smell and had almost forgotten how to breathe,” says Harold Sokyrka, a 71-year-old entrepreneur from Canada. Sokyrka was suffering from severe breathlessness after developing cardiomyopathy, which compromised his heart function. He finally got relieved three to four years later, when he got a new lease of life post his heart transplant surgery.

It has been 37 years since Sokyrka underwent heart transplant surgery in 1986. Today, he is the longest survivor of heart transplant in the world. He also received the Guinness World Record in 2021, post 34 years and 359 days of his heart transplant surgery. Speaking to Happiest Health, Sokyrka says, “The thing about transplant survivors is that we are not quitters. I believe the day I quit, I’ll fail.”

He adds receiving a new heart is a different feeling, and he is grateful to have received a second chance at life. “I’m very lucky and grateful that I got a chance to live all these years, more than I really thought I could. I could see my children and grandchildren grow up. I would’ve missed these things had it not been for this new opportunity,” he says.

Sokyrka now celebrates two birthdays: one on January 16, his actual birthday and the other on June 3, the date when he underwent heart transplant surgery.

Undergoing heart transplant surgery

Recalling his journey, Sokyrka says it was quite a challenging one, as he also had to manage everything with his three school-going daughters. He was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy (enlargement of the heart muscles) after a viral infection spread to his heart at the age of 36. “My heart had grown four times the original size. The doctor recommended a transplant. Back then, the survival rate was very low, but there was no other option available for me,” he says. He travelled to London, which is one of the most prominent destinations for cardiac surgeries and transplants.

The wait for the new heart wasn’t easy as well. He was eighth on the waiting list for a heart transplant and had to wait over six months to receive one. “I was able to live as an outpatient, but I had to wait for the ‘phone call’. I had two false alarms as well. I travelled about 40 miles to the hospital after getting a call from them, only to realise that they got the wrong number,” he says.

Life after heart transplant surgery

Sokyrka finally underwent transplant surgery on June 3, 1986. “When I woke up, everything around me felt so beautiful. To be able to take a deep breath was just amazing,” he says. After the transplant, the medical team realised that the heart has a faulty valve. Sokyrka had to undergo a valve replacement surgery 17 years later, which was also done by his transplant surgeon. It was one of the first cases where a valve replacement surgery was done on a heart transplant survivor.

Sokyrka received the heart from a multiple organ donor who died in a car accident. Interestingly, in one of the rare cases, he got to meet and develop a relationship with the family of his 16-year-old donor, Bruno from Quebec, Canada. “Bruno was one of the first multiple organ donors in the country. He saved six people’s lives, as his father was able to make the decision for organ donation. However, his sister Sylvie Duguay was having trouble coping with the whole situation and was looking for some closure,” he says.

Meeting the donor’s family

The heart transplant programme in Canada does not allow to divulge any details of recipients and donors. However, the recipients can send an anonymous ‘thank you’ letter. “My wife had written a letter to them mentioning that we had three children and that we were from Western Canada. We couldn’t give a lot of details, but it was enough for Sylvie to start searching,” says Sokyrka.

With clues from the letter and coverage in local newspapers, Sylvie managed to contact Sokyrka in Saskatoon after looking for him for 17 years. In a translated note by French-speaking Sylvie, shared by Sokyrka with Happiest Health, she writes that she always wanted to know who got her little brother’s organs. “When I met him [Sokyrka], it was the best day of my life. It reaffirmed my feelings about my brother’s present life. We immediately got along like two peas in a pod. Today, he feels like my half-brother with whom I hope to stay in close contact,” she writes in the note.