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Couple Fall in Love After Heart Surgery

Updated: Mar 7, 2023

This is the most improbable of love stories - but the heart works in mysterious ways. Collin Kobelja and Taylor Givens met in 2011, but it wasn't love at first sight - in fact, Givens says they were both "miserable."


Two love hearts

That's because Kobelja, 34, and Givens, 29, were recovering from heart transplants at hospital in Virginia. They were in rooms right next to each other, and while they interacted, romance wasn't in the air.

However, that all changed on the fifth anniversary of their heart transplants, when Kobelja returned to the hospital to visit his doctors and asked Givens if she'd like to meet for dinner.


"It was cute because we had to take our medicine at the same time, the same medicine," Givens said. "I definitely felt a spark and I wasn't expecting that at all." Dating had been hard for both of them, and it was "great" to find someone "you don't have to explain anything to," Kobelja said. "You can just live your life in a normal way."


They've now been married for four years, and leaned on each other as Kobelja underwent another heart transplant and Givens finished treatment for lymphoma. "Having him beside me, I'm not as afraid of things," Givens told CBS News, adding, "I see him existing and making it through these transplants and thriving, and it gives me a new sense of hope and purpose."

 
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