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While the other children went out to play during kindergarten recess, Katherine Herrmann had to stay inside.
He was born with a heart problem that required him to take medication every day. Because his pills included blood thinners, he couldn’t risk getting hurt and bleeding.
Katherine was a baby when her mother noticed she was having difficulty breathing. She was diagnosed with Shone complex, a rare congenital heart condition characterized by at least two defects that affect blood flow in the left side of the heart.
Within weeks, doctors performed open-heart surgery to replace Katherine’s valves.
By the time she was one, the girl from Canton, Ohio, had undergone seven surgeries.
As she grew older, Katherine found activities that she considered safe and that she enjoyed, such as dance, theater, and choir. She also participated in elementary school fundraisers for the American Heart Association. She liked to share her story because she could help people.
At age 10, he began seeing a therapist to talk about life as a heart patient. There, Katherine learned to describe her feelings and find joy wherever she could.
He soon found many opportunities for that.
At 13, he combined his love of acting and conversation by starting his own YouTube channel. She sometimes talked about her medical procedures, but usually she made rainbow looms and bracelets, reflected on daily life, and answered readers’ mail. (She had her own post office box). She even made a little money from it.
At age 14, the heart valves he had replaced wore out. He needed yet another replacement.
His parents feared him. But Katherine turned it into a show of strength.
Not only did she defiantly dance her way into the operating room, but she did so to the song “Pumpin Blood.” Doctors and nurses got involved too, pumping their fists to the lyrics: “It’s your heart, it’s alive. It’s pumping blood. And the whole world is whistling.”
The operation itself was a success. And having two new healthy valves transformed Katherine. She felt more energetic than ever. She enjoyed a growth spurt, shooting up 4 inches.
But his energy started going in the wrong direction his senior year of high school. In December of his freshman year of college, he underwent a relatively routine procedure to replace a pacemaker.
When the doctor visited her later, he told her she had heart failure. Her next option would be a heart transplant.
She and her mother, Cara Haley, listened for more than an hour as the doctor ran through a litany of dietary and lifestyle instructions for living with heart failure.
As he left the room, Katherine sobbed.
After that diagnosis, many people suggested she quit school to focus on her health.
“I’m not going to sit at home year after year waiting for a heart,” she told them.
Besides, he had another reason to stay on campus. She had started dating a fellow freshman named Ian Herrmann.
As the semesters passed, Katherine could feel her body failing. In her senior year, she couldn’t walk more than five minutes.
By then, she was also on the heart transplant waiting list.
He graduated from college in May 2022. A month later, his health deteriorated to the point that he entered the hospital knowing he would leave with a new heart or nothing.
About a month later, he was visiting his mother when a surgeon stopped by.
“We have a heart for you and it is strong,” he said.
They looked at him astonished. Minutes later, alone again, they hugged and cried.
The next day, July 25, 2022, Katherine received her new heart. That night, she had enough strength to video chat with her mother and Ian, who was now her fiancé.
The next morning, Haley arrived at the hospital and found her daughter already sitting up.
Last spring, Katherine and Ian were married at their church by the pastor who had prayed for her since she was a newborn. She had promised that that day she would arrive.
“Everyone in that room had been praying for us,” Haley said. “When Katherine walked down the aisle as strong as she could, that was the moment she knew, ‘She did it!’ She has accomplished more than she could have ever imagined.”
The following month, Katherine was able to meet (and thank) her donor’s family, a young mother of two.
“I’m using my heart, the heart she gave me, the best I can,” he said.
Katherine, now 23, works as an emergency operator. She is also pursuing a master’s degree in hopes of becoming a pediatric mental health counselor.
“People ask me if I feel normal,” he said. “No, it’s a whole new world, because I never had a normal heart to begin with. I’m living a life I’ve never had before.”
Stories from the heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers, and advocates.
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