Today we’d like to introduce you to Bethany and Hannah Keime.
Bethany and Hannah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Seven years ago, we got a jolt. We were relatively normal, very physically-active, seemingly healthy high schoolers. And, zap, we were told we had the silent, deadly heart condition, HCM, that is the leading killer of student athletes. Fueled by gratitude for that life-saving diagnosis, we work daily to ensure others Get HeartCharged as well. Our mission is to stop people, especially young people, from dying preventable deaths due to heart conditions.
We educate people on the Get HeartCharged life-saving measures – hands-only CPR and AED use. We help identify the 1 in 300 young people with an undiagnosed heart condition. And we give support to those people found with a condition. Our work includes: donating AEDs, facilitating heart screenings, providing CPR/AED training to schools and groups, advocating for heartcharged legislation, doing interviews, giving care packages to young heart patients, and spreading awareness through content we create. We are very proud of the HeartCharged Community we are building on Instagram @heartcharged. Followers can see there our personal stories, which include: being a ballerina with a bionic bulge, finding out the day you would have died without your diagnosis, and going into sudden cardiac arrest on your high-school stage. Followers will also find support which includes meeting or messaging to answer questions or just understand.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our personal journeys have had a number of jolts. Zap, you need an implanted defibrillator. Zap, you can’t dance or play sports anymore. Zap, you will be on medications the rest of your life. Zap, you will need on-going testing. But HeartCharged has been different though it has been some time coming. Bethany felt compelled for years to put her story out there. She felt there was someone who needed to know. But as we went to college and served a mission, there didn’t seem to be the opportunity to embark on the work which we knew would be time-consuming. Then, about a year ago, the time seemed right. And in case we would have hesitated, right before launching our Instagram page @heartcharged, the first person who needed to know our story found us. She found us through an HCM hashtag on a personal page. She was young like us, alone like we would have been without each other, and diagnosed with HCM. She was told she needed an implanted defibrillator but not told what that would mean to her in real life.
And when she saw our real, and full, and grateful lives, she finally decided to have the life-saving operation. Things have progressed from there including an invitation to participate in the international Behind the Scars project. Every time now that we share our personal, somewhat scarred story, it is not long until we know why. We put up a video of Hannah getting shocked by her defibrillator, something almost never seen. That very week, two people who watched it were shocked by theirs but had comfort from having seen how she got through it. So if there are struggles, it’s hard to notice them with all the blessings we’ve been given.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our work is HeartCharged, but we are also both in college full-time and have outside jobs. Our HeartCharged work is like other heart nonprofits in that we facilitate heart screenings, CPR training, and AED donations. What totally sets us apart is our patient-to-patient support. Very, unfortunately, many nonprofits are created out of a tragedy. But we are patients ourselves, and, interestingly, though we are sisters with the same diagnosis, the condition has presented differently in us and the management of our condition has stark differences.
In other words, we’ve been there ourselves and we understand when another patient reaches out to us. We will stay up all night messaging someone going into surgery. We can answer questions about whether a lead wire itches. We will show our scars and share our experiences. We put people in touch with one another. We do virtual meet-up’s with patients around the world. We are connecting with people who knew no one else with their condition. We are very often thanked for this. We personally know it brings sanity to one’s life. Also what sets us apart is that we create our own content, which is very varied, educational and entertaining. We are proud of our recent awareness campaign we call Get HeartCharged: Knockout Sudden Cardiac Death. This includes videos, a dance video, numerous posts, and a challenge. All costumes, filming, choreography, and props were done by us. We also made our own website.
How do you think about luck?
We’ve had a lot of good luck, blessings if you will. Many of the right people have spurred us along. We already mentioned the patient who needed to see what life with HCM meant. Just happened. Then came the Behind the Scars photoshoot and Instagram takeover. From one request. We volunteered at a luncheon and from that, we have a professional photographer that takes many of our pictures for no charge. One day we reached out to a radio personality and a couple weeks later, we had an interview.
One morning we wrote to a television station, that afternoon they said they wanted to do a story. We dreamt of our awareness campaign and we asked one person and they donated their boxing gym to us for days of shooting free. A friend from HeartCharged at that same time decided to give us $100. It was all we needed for the fabric for our clothing and props, which were handmade for us by us and family. A soccer team needed an AED; we won one. There’s so many, many more, including reaching out to you and being able to do this article now.
Contact Info:
- Email: thejolt@getheartcharged.org
- Website: getheartcharged.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartcharged/
Image Credits
Richard Rawson Stephanie Keime Rebeca Perez
