Last Saturday was supposed to be a happy occasion for Katie Prager. The 26-year-old’s family had decorated her aunt’s home in Fleming County, Ky. with red and green lights, Christmas carols played in the background and her friends decorated a large tree in the living room. Katie was wearing a festive sweater with a cat on the front and trying her best to enjoy the day’s festivities.
Earlier that afternoon, she had said her last goodbye to her dying husband, Dalton Prager, over FaceTime. The early Christmas celebration was being held in September because Katie’s family wasn’t sure she would still be alive in December.
Katie and Dalton met online when they were only 18 years old. Both of them were born with cystic fibrosis, a fatal hereditary disorder that affects the lungs and digestive system. The couple’s doctors had advised them never to meet in person because cystic fibrosis patients can transfer life-threatening diseases and bacteria to each other. Katie and Dalton ignored their doctors’ warnings because they knew they were in love. Two years later, the couple wed when they were 20 years old. They were dubbed the “real Fault in our Stars” couple by the media based on their similarities to the central characters in the best-selling novel by John Green, which tells the story of two teenagers dying of cancer who fall in love.
In the early days of their marriage, Katie and Dalton were able to spend a lot of time together supporting one another in hospital as they both underwent treatment. The couple documented their daily health struggles, achievements and especially their love for each other on their joint Facebook page. Katie frequently updated the page with posts about her husband’s progress.
“Keep the prayers coming. Dalton is doing a little better this evening,” she wrote on Sept. 10.
Dalton received a double lung transplant in November 2014 and Katie followed suit eight months later. The pair had to be separated after Dalton received his new lungs and they remained apart after Katie received hers due to complications from their transplants. Dalton was placed on a ventilator and struggled with pneumonia while Katie’s kidneys were failing.
Katie made the decision earlier this month to die naturally and began end-of-life hospice care at her family’s home in Kentucky.
“I won’t have to go back to the hospital or get anymore IVs,” she wrote on an online fundraising page. “I get to spend the rest of my time surrounded by people and things that make me happy. Please don’t take this as a sign of me giving up.”
Katie and her family are raising money for her “Celebration of Life” to help her enjoy as many experiences as she can before she dies. Her list of things to do included having Christmas in September, going swimming and seeing her husband in person one more time.
Katie’s final wish never came true. The couple’s families tried to raise money to transfer Dalton from a hospital in St. Louis to one close to Katie in Kentucky. Delay after delay meant that Katie’s husband wasn’t able to be transferred in time to see her before he died.
After Katie said her final goodbye to Dalton on that rainy “Christmas” Saturday, she posted the news about his death on the couple’s Facebook page.
“My angel, my best friend, the love of my life, my husband went to be with the Lord our God today. Dalton fought a long hard battle with Cystic Fibrosis,” Katie wrote. “He was a courageous fighter and ‘give up’ wasn’t in his vocabulary.”
For Katie, Dalton’s death isn’t the end of their romance. The young widow told the Lexington Herald-Leader that she believes in the afterlife and that she would be seeing him “soon.”
