Millie Kuliktana heard voices when she woke up in the hospital bed in Edmonton, more than 1,500-kilometres from her home in Kugluktuk, Nunavut.
It was mid-October and she'd been asleep for a few days, following a double-lung transplant.
"Millie, say hi to your family," she remembers the nurse saying.
At that moment, she felt grateful — partly because she heard her daughter yelling in the background, thrilled to see her mother awake — but mostly because she was alive.
"I opened my eyes wide enough and I could see three people standing there," Kuliktana said of her sister, daughter and son.
"And they said I tried to say hi and only my finger pointed up," she laughed. "It's a memory I'll never forget."
Waiting for new lungs
Ten years ago, Kuliktana was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a form of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs.
At the time, doctors told her she needed a double-lung transplant, but was too sick for surgery.
So Kuliktana decided to stay in Kugluktuk to teach her language, Inuinnaqtun, and volunteer wherever she could.
Be determined. Because there's no other option. You can't give up.- Millie Kuliktana, on her double-lung transplant
For a decade, she lived with a medical pump that infused medication into her body every minute.
There were days when she couldn't leave her home, but she says she tried to "flourish" despite her condition.
"Even though you have challenges, you have to try to continue to live positively," Kuliktana told Trailbreaker host Loren McGinnis is 2016.
Finally though, on Oct. 14, 2019, Kuliktana got the call: doctors had found a donor match.
"Oh my God, my heart was racing so fast," she told McGinnis this month.
When reached for this story, Kuliktana was still in Edmonton being monitored by doctors, but was expected to make a full recovery.
'Something that's not rightfully mine'
Kuliktana says she'll always treat her new lungs like a gift she never thought she'd receive.
She says "we always treasure gifts," but something like this is hard to fully accept.
"I have to take care of something that's not rightfully mine," she said.
"You have to understand that the family that gave to you, was also saying farewell to their loved ones.
"I have to take the best care of them," Kuliktana said of her new lungs. "That's the only way I can continue to go forward with them is to totally accept them as a really special gift."
Kuliktana says she doesn't know who the donor or their family is — and they don't know who she is — but they did call her donor co-ordinator to see how she was doing.
"Words cannot express it enough, but I can only say that I was so grateful," she remembers telling the co-ordinator. "'That's all they need to hear,'" the co-ordinator replied.
Kuliktana says three weeks ago, she wrote a poem for her donor's family. She's not ready to share it with everyone yet. She says for now, it's something special between her and that family.
"Anybody who's sick, you know, take it one day at a time," Kuliktana said. "Be determined. Because there's no other option. You can't give up."
Written by Alyssa Mosher based on an interview by Loren McGinnis