A woman has revealed how she found the love of her life on LinkedIn, explaining how what started as a job offer turned into nine years of marriage with a partner who stood by her while she battled a devastating cancer diagnosis.
Katie Ortman Doble, from Colorado, is a scout who, in 2013, was in her early 30s and living in Denver.
She had proudly spent her 20s becoming “the queen of the networks,” as she described it in an essay for Business Insider — becoming especially adept at LinkedIn, with the professional platform being “the first website I open at the beginning of every work day,” he added.
But, Katie continued, for most of her young life, I was perpetually single. I went out frequently, but rarely made it to the second date.
“Maybe I was being too picky, but I wanted sprinkles and could never find them,” she wrote.
Katie Ortman Doble knew LinkedIn well from her work as a headhunter, but she never expected the professional networking app to connect her with her husband.
She met her now-husband, Nick, after reaching out to him on LinkedIn to propose a potential recruit, then a hiring manager at a local company.
That all changed when, one day, Katie approached the hiring manager of a local company about a potential recruit.
His name was Nick and he seemed to be new to the area, an expat from the UK.
‘You don’t look like you’re from here. I hope you’re enjoying it!’ She finished her first message to him.
The exchange took off from there and culminated with Katie submitting an open offer for the two to meet in person.
“If you ever want to grab a coffee or a beer, I love networking,” he concluded.
For his part, when he read Katie’s message, Nick apparently mentioned to a coworker at the time, “I think I just got a date on LinkedIn.”
The couple made plans to meet on a Saturday afternoon at a “hip cocktail bar in downtown Denver,” Katie recalled.
Although he had previously accepted countless in-person networking meetings, this seemed different to him, as he wrote: “After all, I often meet new clients for coffee or a beer, although it was usually the former and never on Saturdays.” .’
After sparks flew on their first date, Nick proposed to Katie a year later on Thanksgiving Day.
However, while the couple was planning their wedding, Katie was also coming to terms with a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Although she was initially given 16 months to live, Katie received help from her doctor father, who pointed her in the right direction to enroll in clinical trials, which ultimately saved her life.
She was taken aback by his description of his shirt, as he had described it as “burgundy and blue plaid.”
‘My gay stepbrother once informed me that if a boy uses a color outside of the basic Crayola chart, he’s probably gay. She wasn’t even sure what “claret” was, Katie said.
But, she reminded herself, most of all, “the reason I was happy to be there,” she said, was because “I love meeting new people.”
Then he entered, with his very long torso, legs for days and an adorable dimple in his chin peeking out from under his short beard. “Please don’t be gay,” I thought, smiling when we first made eye contact, and discovered that claret is actually just burgundy,” Katie recalled.
Katie later recalled how their conversation on that first date “flowed effortlessly, as we talked about our jobs, our families, and where we were from… Neither of us stopped smiling the entire night.”
At the same time, he was hesitant to mention the fact that he had been diagnosed with uveal melanoma, a rare form of cancer in the left eyeball with only a two percent chance of spreading.
Still, other men she had dated had hinted that the diagnosis made her unable to actively pursue long-term romantic prospects.
But when she “let it slip” to Nick that she had sold her red scooter in anticipation of losing sight in her left eye due to her cancer, he seemed “more upset that I no longer had my cool red scooter than that Una I once had cancer.’
The date ended with a kiss and, as Katie fondly remembers, “the sparks.”
Over the next year, the two became inseparable and soon met his friends and family as well.
Nick recruited Katie’s sisters to go ring picking out with him and put plans in motion to propose on Thanksgiving Day.
Even facing a heartbreaking battle with cancer, Katie and Nick continued to travel and make plans for their shared future together.
The couple even got a dog, even though Katie’s longevity was uncertain during her battle with cancer.
At the same time, Katie received the devastating news that the cancer had spread and now, with an ultrasound showing 12 new cancerous lesions in her liver, she was facing a terminal diagnosis.
“My sisters frantically texted Nick, suggesting he postpone the engagement,” Katie continued.
Without hesitation, he replied: ‘”It doesn’t change anything… She’s still the girl I want to marry.”
‘The day he proposed to me was the most emotional day of my life.
‘The following week they confirmed that the melanoma had spread and that I had 16 months to live. I was full of mixed emotions.
‘Receiving a diagnosis of incurable stage 4 cancer with a lifespan of 16 months is pure terror.
“Being asked to spend an eternity, however long, with the man you love is pure joy.”
“I felt hopeless and hopeful,” Katie recalled of the period of her life that shook the world.
And indeed there was hope for Katie. Although her primary oncologist gave her less than a year and a half to live, her father, a physician, immediately began searching for clinical trials for which Katie might be eligible.
After one last surgery in 2021 to remove a ‘rogue’ tumor, Katie was finally declared cancer-free.
In January 2015, Katie signed up for one in New York at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK).
The following month, she married Nick.
‘The clinical trial at MSK stabilized my tumors for eight months. When I experienced tumor growth that eliminated me from the trial, I enrolled in my second trial in Denver. This game of whack-a-mole would continue for seven years,” he continued.
He ultimately participated in a total of four clinical trials, as well as “two liver embolizations, a gamma knife when it extended to my brain, a laparoscopic liver resection procedure, and surgery to remove half of my liver.”
“Each test and treatment allowed Nick and me to spend more time together,” Katie gushed.
‘We spent our 30s in fight or flight mode, but we never lost hope. We continue making plans. We built a house, got a puppy, and traveled the world.
In 2021, Katie had one last surgery to remove one last “rogue” tumor and suddenly she was finally cancer-free.
He concluded: “I’m not suggesting using LinkedIn as a dating app, but we go through life making connections with strangers.” And sometimes, when we least expect it, those chance connections end up sustaining us.’