Heart transplant recipients Katherine Baines, left, and Rita Spitieri, participate in the We Walk UHNITED in Toronto on May 31, 2025, to raise money for UHN Foundation.Supplied
The organizer: Rita Spitieri
The pitch: raising $3,000 and climbing
The cause: Toronto’s University Health Network
Rita Spitieri was working as a flight attendant on an overnight flight from Los Angeles in 2009 when she struck up a conversation with a passenger that led her to finally understand what was wrong with her heart.
Ms. Spitieri had been suffering from weakness on her left side while exercising and often found herself out of breath even though she was in good shape. For years doctors struggled to diagnose the problem and her family doctor suspected it might be cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal genetic disease that affects the heart’s ability to pump blood.
“I went to multiple doctors and they told me it was nothing. They said it was anxiety. But I knew something was wasn’t right,” she recalled from her home in Toronto.
Pitching in: Raising money for Toronto’s University Health Network
The passenger on the flight turned out to be a specialist in cardiomyopathy and he told her who to contact at Toronto General Hospital, which is part of the University Health Network.
Cardiac doctors performed multiple tests and finally determined that Ms. Spitieri, who was 47 at the time, had Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. She also learned that six family members, including her son, had inherited the condition.
Ms. Spitieri went through years of treatment, but in 2021, doctors said the damage to her heart was too severe and she needed a transplant. It took a year for a heart to become available and in September, 2022, Ms. Spitieri underwent successful surgery.
She’s now a volunteer with a support group for transplant patients and she’s part of a national advocacy committee to raise awareness about organ donations and works to improve the transplantation system.
On May 30, she’ll take part in the second annual We Walk UHNITED event in downtown Toronto which raises money for the UHN Foundation. She’s raised just over $3,300 so far.
“UHN has not only saved my life, they’ve become part of my family,” Ms. Spitieri said.
“Heart transplants are not common,” she added. “There’s only less than 40 done in UHN a year. And how this has inspired me to just make a difference.”