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Katja de Groot becomes one of 40 children worldwide to get a partial heart transplant through “domino surgery.”
MALTBY, Wash. — At a table in her family’s home, 9-year-old Katja de Groot reaches into the box for dominoes that she lines up perfectly on the table.
Her mother Jennifer encourages her with a smile that belies the extraordinary journey her daughter has just completed. “Is the first domino you, and this is all of the things we went through all summer to get to the place we are now?” she asks, pointing to the carefully arranged pieces.
But life doesn’t play out in a straight line. And for Katja, the path to healing has been anything but predictable.
This summer saw Katja get her fourth heart surgery in her nine short years of life. Her first came at just 6 days old. This one will hopefully be her last — a rare partial heart transplant. Katja is just one of about 40 children in the entire world to receive one.
When asked to sum up her experience, Katja chooses two simple words: “A lot.”
A community’s role
The journey began with getting Katja to North Carolina for the transplant. She needed a pricey private jet to keep her surroundings clean and safe. KING 5 viewer John Chontofalsky donated $14,000 to help make that happen.
But once on the East Coast, what was supposed to take a few weeks stretched to 2½ months. Potential donors kept backing out. Katja, who was in heart failure, kept getting sicker.
“It is a special kind of hell to go through as a parent,” her mother says, reaching for another game piece.
The ‘domino surgery’
“I looked at my husband and said, ‘It’s a domino,’” she recalls.
A child in the same hospital was getting a full heart transplant, so he could give Katja the partial heart she needed. It’s something doctors call “domino surgery.”
“They chose to share that miracle with another kid, and in doing so there were two miracles that day,” her mother explains.
Looking forward
Finally home, Katja has quite a bit of recovery ahead, but hopes to start living life as a healthy kid for the first time ever.
“We have become an expert at pills,” Jennifer says matter-of-factly.
But there are lighter moments too.
“She wants to get her ears pierced,” her mother laughs.
“You said after my surgery,” replies Katja automatically.
“You gotta wait a few months though. I don’t think the transplant team will be happy with me if I go poking holes in you,” Jennifer replied.
Katja’s future remains unclear. Her procedure is so rare she is part of her own research. But her family trusts the domino effect will continue to show itself.
“Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s a miracle. Maybe it’s just a lot of really good people with really good hearts coming together,” Jennifer reflects.
The sound of dominoes crashing across the table fills the room as Katja knocks her heart shaped design over with a gentle push — the pieces continuing to fall into place.
“I mean, we feel so blessed by how many people who have fallen in love with a little girl we have always been in love with,” her mother says, watching the dominoes tumble one by one.
The de Groots encourage others to become organ donors — to keep the domino effect moving forward..
