On April 20, 2008, Katherine Wolf had everything in the world.

Katherine, who grew up in our community and attended Athens Academy, was enjoying a thriving modeling and acting career in California.

Brilliant and beautiful, her personal life was as charmed as her professional life. She had a handsome and ambitious husband, Jay, who was just finishing his law degree at Pepperdine University. The Wolf’s had a baby, too; a boy so perfect he looked like his face had been plucked from a Gerber commercial.

Even luck was on her side. Some people compete on a game show and walk away with only a washer and dryer to show for their efforts. Katherine went on “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader” and walked away with $50,000.

“Katherine was blessed with all the things the world says are important,” her mother, Kim Arnold, said.

On April 21, 2008, that perfectly-charmed life changed. Katherine suffered from a rupture of an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) at the base of her brain. 

Now, miracle is a word that is bantered about much too casually these days. But, that Katherine survived the rupture, and 16 hours of subsequent surgery, can only be called a miracle.

Even though she survived the surgery, which removed over half of her cerebellum, Kim said doctors at UCLA told the family Katherine would have “physical deficits.”

“They just took our breath away, because the doctor said she would either be in a coma or hooked up to a machine in a permanent vegetative state,” she said.

Yet, just hours after her surgery, Katherine squeezed her doctor’s hand in response to his command, another bona-fide miracle. Even the scientifically-oriented white coats at UCLA Medical Center use that word to describe Katherine, Jay and Kim said.

But, perhaps the most miraculous aspect of this incredible story of fate and faith is that Katherine stills believes she has everything in the world.

Katherine and her husband Jay are only 26. They are young, and they look even younger. But, the two possess a wisdom and a faith normally found only in people two or three times their age. 

Listen as Katherine and Jay and Kim tell their story. Listen as this family finds blessings in each step of their journey.

“The Lord, from the beginning, was in this,” Jay said.

Jay said it was God’s providence that he was home on April 21, 2008. Normally he would have been in law school classes, but he came home for an hour or so to put some final touches on a project. It was three days before his last set of final exams.

That day, Jay said, his wife “simply collapsed.” Katherine, they now know, had a congenital defect, an AVM, that she never knew existed in her body. That day, the AVM ruptured.

But, God’s hand was in the mix even in the location of where they lived, Jay said, because they rushed his wife to UCLA in Santa Monica. She was then transferred to UCLA Westwood, where Dr. Nestor Gonzales was on duty.

“He is one of the top neurosurgeons in the world for her (Katherine’s) type of injury, and he happened to be on call that day,” Jay explained.

The doctor debated surgery, Jay and Kim said, because even if Katherine survived, there would be such serious consequences. But, in the end, he chose to operate.

Later, Kim said, Dr. Gonzales presented Katherine’s case at a neurosurgeon conference.  No doctors at the conference said, considering the injury and the likely resulting health problems, they would have elected to undertake the same operation.

It was some operation, all right. Sixteen hours of surgery. Kim said never were there fewer than six anesthesiologists in the operating room at one time. Jay said his wife depleted 10 percent of UCLA’s blood resources in a single surgery.

The doctor left after the surgery, staggering away in sheer exhaustion. The hospital called him back hours later when Katherine responded to voice commands.

“The nurses said they never, ever, bother a surgeon after that type of operation, but they called him back that day,” Kim said.

Katherine was rallying, but was in for no easy ride. 

“She was in ICU for 40 days, then in acute rehab for three and a half months,” Jay said.

How does a young man deal with so much, so quick? Jay said church friends

flooded into the hospital during surgery. That helped him through those long hours.

Later in ICU and rehab, Jay said it helped to meet other people who were “clearly in the worst place in their lives.”

“I had the opportunity to minister to those people,” Jay said.

There were other blessings, like the prayers of so many people. Family stepped in to care for the baby, and friends stepped in to help with things Katherine did at her church, Bel Air Presbyterian.

And, what providence, Jay said, that Katherine won that money on a quiz show. The winnings are, at the moment, keeping the family afloat financially, and allowing Jay to concentrate on caring for his wife and baby boy, James.

The family is now living in Pomona, California, home of the Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation, and Katherine has progressed to full therapy five days a week, with nights spent with her family.

This Christmas, the Wolfs traveled to Montgomery, Alabama for Jay’s sister’s wedding. Then they came to Katherine’s hometown, where yellow ribbons and banners greeted the young family.

Put up by numerous friends, and by people who have never even met Katherine, the ribbons can be seen all over Oconee and Clarke counties.

At her parents’ home on the Oconee/Clarke County line, Katherine is now able to hold in her lap the baby who was still breastfeeding when her AVM ruptured. She can walk around a bit with the help of a three-pronged cane and the sturdy arm of her husband.

However, there are still some “major health issues,” Jay said.

Katherine has a feeding tube, but is working diligently to learn to swallow again. “It seems so simple, but it is a complex function,” Jay said of the reflex that allows a person to swallow food.

Nerve damage to muscles has affected her entire right side, and she has ataxia, which results in a lack of balance and coordination.

She can speak, but the lingering nerve damage has certainly affected her speech. 

Katherine lets her mom and husband do most of the talking today. She seems only to speak of the things she really feels are most important to say.

Three of the things she wanted people to know – three things of which she was very proud – were that she went to Athens Academy for her entire elementary, middle and high school education, that she participated in Oconee Youth Playhouse’s productions growing up, and that she was glad to be back home for a visit.

“Back home in Oconee County,” she said emphatically.

Her speech and her appearance are changed, but make no mistake: Katherine is still brilliant and beautiful.

She knows, however, that in an industry deeply rooted in physical attributes, her career as a model and actress may not resume one day. 

Katherine, her husband said, had given several talks to church groups about “how our identities should be in Christ, not in other things.” The message that physical beauty and a lucrative career were not the end-all of end-alls, was, Jay said, “already engraved on Katherine’s heart” before her AVM ruptured.

So, even knowing that she may not be a top model or a famous actress, Katherine stills smiles, laughs and believes she is the most blessed creature on earth.

After all, she still has the handsome husband, the beautiful baby, and the reassuring discovery that what she and Jay always said they believed in held true even when the very worst happened.

“Now we do know,” she said. “We do know.”

Mary Anne Carroll is a reporter for The Oconee Leader. She can be reached at 706-310-1104 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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