In this episode of The CARTI Hopecast, host Adam Head sits down with Katherine Wolf—author, speaker and advocate—whose life changed in an instant when a massive brain stem stroke at age 26 reshaped everything she thought she knew about her future.

At the time, Katherine was a young mother with a six-month-old son, newly married, and living a healthy, active life. What followed her sudden collapse was a 16-hour brain surgery, months of hospitalization, and years of intensive rehabilitation, learning to walk, speak, and live again in a completely new way.

In this conversation, Katherine reflects on the long journey from survival to purpose. She speaks candidly about the early years of “emergency mode,” when there was little space to process and every day was focused on recovery. Over time, her story began to shift, not away from suffering, but toward meaning within it.

Katherine shares how her experience reshaped her understanding of identity, beauty, and what it means to live a full life. She challenges the idea that healing means returning to what once was, offering instead a vision of embracing a new normal and finding joy within it. Through her work with Hope Heals and the disability community, she continues to help others reimagine their lives in the face of hardship.

Takeaways:

• Life can change instantly, even without warning or prior health concerns.
• The early stages of trauma often require survival before reflection.
• Healing is not a return to the past, but an acceptance of a new reality.
• Suffering can shape identity in ways that lead to deeper purpose.
• Community and shared burdens are essential in navigating hardship.
• True fulfillment is found in intangible things like peace, joy and connection.
• Disability does not diminish the value or beauty of a life.
• We have permission to dream new dreams when life doesn’t go as planned.
• The “miracle” may not be what we expected, but it can be found in the present moment.

Referenced in this episode:

Hope Heals

Hope Heals Camps and Retreats

Founded in 1976, CARTI delivers leading-edge cancer care in a compassionate, patient-centered environment. Our mission is to make trusted cancer care accessible for every patient we serve through compassion, innovation, and purpose.

The CARTI Hopecast shares authentic, meaningful stories that focus on human experiences. Every day, we see patients and families navigating unimaginable hardships, sometimes feeling alone in their journey. Through The Hopecast, listeners hear stories of resilience and transformation, fostering a sense of connection and hope.

I thought surely this was food poisoning or you know, I'd eaten a weird burrito yesterday and made me feel funny or I'm a young breastfeeding mother.

Surely this is just exhaustion.

The initial first few years were really emergency mode.

It was survival.

It was learned to walk again, learn to stand up, learn to eat food.

I like to share to anybody who will listen that we have permission to dream new dreams for our lives.

Today we're joined by Kathryn Wolf whose story invites us into a deeper understanding of suffering, resilience and the redefinition of a meaningful life.

Welcome to the Car Tye HopeCast where we explore stories that shape us journeys of resilience, hope and perseverance.

We seek the lessons that emerge when we face the unexpected and find strength in the struggle.

I'm Adam Head and today I have the honor of sitting down with Kathryn Wolfe.

Catherine is an author, speaker and advocate whose life was profoundly altered by a sudden medical crisis.

What followed was not only a long road of rehabilitation, but a reimagining of identity, purpose and hope.

Kathryn, thank you so much for joining us today and welcome to the Kartai hopecast.

Oh, thank you for having me.

I'm so grateful to be here.

Well, we're grateful for your time and your willingness to share your story.

We've been looking forward to this.

Your story certainly reflects a before and an after.

If you want.

Absolutely.

How would you describe yourself?

Okay, before the stroke I would say I was a newly 26 year old young mother with a 6 month old baby at home, happily married to her college sweetheart and living in California at Pepperdine married housing where he was in law school and entirely typically able bodied with no health problems, no medical issues of any kind, no family history and no symptoms.

No indication there was anything wrong with my health.

Well, you do a great job of describing the the day of when things changed in your book Hope Heals.

But can you take us to the moment when you realized something was seriously wrong and what that realization felt like in real time?

I don't know if I ever realized the severity in the moment.

I mean, I thought when I collapsed and started throwing up and the body became instantly paralyzed, I thought surely this was food poisoning or you know, I'd eaten a weird burrito yesterday and made me feel funny or I'm a young breastfeeding mother.

Surely this is just exhaustion and being worn out.

I had no idea what was happening.

I would only come to learn two and a half months later, after being in the 16 hour brain surgery to save my life and many, many major obstacles, I would only learn then, two and a half months later that I had had a birth defect that had ruptured in my brain stem and caused a brain stem stroke.

And so none of that was anything I could have ever imagined, to answer your question.

So, no, I had no indication or really no knowledge that this kind of thing could happen to a healthy young person.

Well, as you said, the scope of what happened to you was profound, really touching every dimension of your life.

How did you begin to process the extent of what happened once you learned two and a half months later actually what it was that caused the stroke?

I would say it took actually many years to process.

And I think I'm probably still processing.

To be honest, I'm 17 years out and I don't have it all figured out.

I don't think I'll ever understand this side of heaven, why this is my story.

And if we're honest, that's probably all of us.

But I can tell you the initial first few years were really emergency mode.

It was survival.

It was learn to walk again, learn to stand up, learn to eat food, learn to live, learn to speak, accept a paralyzed face, learn to work with my one working hand.

It was such intense, deep emergencies that there was not much time for really processing.

I would say actually only at about the five year mark.

So five years after the stroke, I think I finally began to come up for air.

That's what I feel like.

Jenny and I both recognized that the Lord had called us to this, that this wasn't something to put in the rearview mirror, that I'm fully disabled now, my life is forever turned upside down.

Both of our lives are.

So we're going to take this terrible misery and turn it into ministry.

We recognize we are in a horrific mess and we are going to use this as a message and not waste the pain.

I'm sure many of your guests can attest that my pain is too precious to waste.

That what God has done in and through this horrific suffering and ongoing suffering in many ways is too precious to not champion and steward for the rest of my life and my husband, my children feel that way, that we.

When you are living on the edge, which so many of the people you're having conversations with are, there is a point you reach where you don't want your old life anymore, you don't want to go back.

You see that God is doing something new and he wants to be a part of that, you recognize that suffering is not the end of the story, but rather, suffering is the beginning of something new that God is doing, and you ought to be a part of it.

Here's a quote from you.

I don't think any of us can tell our most vulnerable stories in the moments they occur for fear they may undo us.

We have to wait until we're in a season of safety before we can open up our deepest wounds.

Over the last many years, you've continued to tell your own vulnerable story, but were there moments in the aftermath of your stroke you thought, I might never be in a season of safety to share what I've gone through, to be able to tell the story as you have with the platform you have?

You know, that's such an interesting question.

It's both yes and no.

In those early days, yeah, I kind of thought my life was over.

I mean, it was so rough.

There was such a terrible cycle of surgeries, of endless rehab, the failed solving test.

I actually did not learn to eat food again until 11 months after the stroke.

So there was just so much, like, horrible stuff from the moment on after the stroke that I kind of thought, is this ever, ever going to not be the case?

How could I possibly have time to process or marinate or write a book or anything else?

But at that very same time, I believe the Lord had instilled deep in my heart a desire to not waste this and make it more than about just me.

I began universalizing my story almost instantly, which is pretty bizarre.

I would stay up late at night in the brain rehab and peck out with my one working left hand a little manifesto called My Journey Back, where I would chronicle the ways I was regaining different things.

It's fascinating.

And instantly I became aware through a number of just really cool experiences, that what feels most personal to me, that is actually what is most universal to everyone.

For instance, things like paralyzed face could seem entirely unique.

Most people don't have a paralyzed face.

That's a rare deal.

However, who looks in the mirror every morning and feels beautiful no matter what their face looks like?

Who is delighted by their appearance every moment of every day?

Well, no one.

Everyone feels like I feel to some degree, and I could smell that out in a thousand ways, that I am an extreme example.

But we're all living out versions of a life that is hard and where we feel disabled by various elements.

From your experience as a patient, and you have a lot of experience as a patient, what did it mean when doctors and caregivers truly saw you as A person and not just a medical case.

Hmm, that's a great question.

I will be honest and tell you that's few and far between.

That's not the norm.

But for instance, my initial neurosurgeon, Dr. Nestor Gonzalez, truly saw me, my family, all the way through.

We are still close today, actually.

My miracle second born child is named for him, actually.

We're deep, we love this man.

He's my family.

Dr. Nestor truly saw me, my story, my faith and just really came alongside us.

It meant the world to us.

And I like to say to other patients that really trying to connect with all of the medical professionals, while not always easy and you feel very entitled to.

I'm in pain right now, so I'm not going to try to get to know you.

That's actually a mistake.

That making a connection to the healthcare providers makes a significant difference in your healthcare experience and thus in your recovery.

Honestly, that really trying to make eye contact with every nurse, every doctor, every tech, everybody, that is significant in my opinion and very important for all us.

Patients to do well, certainly from a caregiver standpoint.

Yeah, I appreciate that as well.

Absolutely.

There's a very human tendency in all of us to want to get things back to the way they were, so to speak, after life has dealt a disruption.

But as you've experienced along with so many others, there often isn't a going back, there's just a moving forward with a new normal.

Can you describe a moment you clearly remember where you knew you must embrace this new normal goodness?

I mean that's every moment.

But yeah, you know, everyone wants to think like, okay, I'll suffer and then I'll go back to my old life and I'll sneak in the back door of how it used to be.

The reality is you can't because you're different.

Suffering has changed you.

Suffering has formed a new person.

I believe suffering does that it forms new people.

Chronic and long term conditions can, can deeply affect relationships as you, I know, have experienced.

How did your marriage, family and closest relationships change or evolve as you learn to now accept help that you knew you would, you would need from them?

And being in this vulnerable position, I.

Hope that I became more grateful for every person in my life and just recognized how important community, family are when there is a crisis.

And really I certainly hope I've learned I'm just to value each person in my life so much.

I believe so deeply that we can bear the burden when we share the burden that we can't do this life alone.

It's too hard that we need each other.

Over time, your story has shifted from survival to purpose, certainly.

And was just wondering when you knew, when you began to sense that your suffering might carry meaning even beyond your own story and the way you've connected with others.

Yeah, I would say it's all about proximity, isn't it?

Proximity changes understanding.

And instead of really isolating from the disability community of which I became a member, you know, it's very difficult to join a minority group overnight.

And I did.

And when I joined the minority group of people living with disabilities, I did a deep dive.

And once you see, you can't unsee, can you?

You can't look away when you look too deep, I believe.

And so once I saw the hurting heart of so many with disabilities and the deep challenge and suffering and also the tremendous freedom, freedom and joy of really owning your disabilities and living well within the constraints of your story, then I became addicted to helping other people learn to love their lives, even with disabilities.

Well, speaking of, one in five people living in the United States live with a disability and you often speak about redefining what a good life looks like.

How is your understanding of fulfillment and joy changed over the years?

Now, as you mentioned, as a member of that community, you know, I think.

Probably before my massive stroke as a 26 year old, I would never have fully understood the notion that of good not meaning.

Things that did not necessarily feel good, seem good, look good to the world.

Now I very much understand that, that the truly good things have nothing to do with this physical world.

It's that the good things are the intangible things.

The peace, the joy, the assurance of his faithfulness to us.

I see through our camp community and so many times throughout disability spaces, the reality that as a person living with disabilities, we get to disrupt the lie, the idol, the myth that joy can only come in a pain free life because we all know too much.

We know there may in fact be pain in the story, but that doesn't mean it's not a glorious story.

I have a podcast myself called the Good Hard Story, where I tell stories of how people are living such good lives with hard things in them.

In fact, we, my husband and I, are desperately trying to teach our little boys that there may in fact be hard things in the story, but it can somehow still be a very good story.

And I hope it's working.

TBD well, you mentioned Hope Hills Camp, but I just, I wanted to go through just some of the things in case listeners are unfamiliar that you and your husband Jay have been able to be involved in and do.

The Hope Hills camp was established, creating a place of rest, resources and relationships for families affected by disabilities.

So clearly you've done so much to connect with those who have disabilities, but I wondered what kind of reactions and you have, have you felt from those who have experienced any of these created spaces and how has that made you feel now to reflect on your own evolving story?

Good question.

You know, in being in a relationship with so many who are suffering in some way, many through disabilities, many, you know, a version of a life that is not meeting the expectations they thought would be for their lives, which honestly is just about everybody, if we're honest, that reality is different than we thought it would be and life is harder than we thought it would be.

And those in the disability community, while physically showcase that to the world.

I think every human being, I mean, I know every volunteer at our camp who is typically able bodied would echo by the end of the week that this feels so similar, that there is this deep mutuality of ministry that we're all dealing with so many different versions of pain and suffering and hardship.

And I like to share to anybody who will listen that we have permission to dream new dreams for our lives.

We don't have to be wedded to the dreams from when we were a little kid.

No, no, no.

I believe we each have the opportunity to become emotionally agile and to pivot in life, to do differently, to go a different way, to love a different thing, that we don't have to be wedded to it looking exactly like we thought it was going to look when we were a child.

I wanted to just give you an opportunity before we close.

Is there anything you'd like to.

Oh, well, goodness.

I mean, I always have funds to share, so that's kind of a hard question for me.

I will tell you this.

I have no plans to slow down on sharing hope.

That would probably be the main one.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

No, I still like when.

Well, I'll say this.

It says in the Psalms that the Lord has enlarged my heart in my distress.

And I see that to have happened to me that in my deep distress and trauma.

The Lord has enlarged my heart.

I see hurting souls and I want to provide healing, hope, and instill in many that they do have capacity for incredibly hard things, that the world likes to tell us that we can't handle the hard stuff.

It's too much.

It's too bad.

It's unsurvivable.

And the reality is the opposite, that no, we do have capacity.

We can handle the hard things.

We do find a way to cope in our stories and actually not just cope, but end up loving our stories, loving our actual lives that we are actually living.

Not just the life we thought we'd be living, but the real one right in front of our nose.

And I guess, lastly, I would say that, you know, we see the miracle, the miracle as the picture in our head of exactly what we thought it would look like.

Well, if I was waiting for the miracle in my story, I could possibly be waiting my entire life.

And the reality is, what a sad way to live.

Always waiting for the miracle.

What if we see the miracle as now?

What if we see this moment, these moments, as the profound miracle that they are?

It's a miracle that I'm talking to you right now.

It's a miracle that you are on this earth right now and that I am, honestly.

And we need to see every moment like that, the miracle that it actually is, instead of waiting for the miracle that might not come while we're on Earth.

Well, Kathryn Wolfe, your story and those who have watched you from afar continues to inspire them.

And it's made by many more people feel seen as well.

So thank you for the work you continue to do and for joining us today on.

Thank you.

Oh, gosh.

Thank y' all for having me.

It was a wonderful conversation.

So glad to share with you.