WATCH: A Nanaimo couple is fighting for their lives together after a heartbreaking double diagnosis. Tracy Stuart was preparing to give her gravely sick husband a kidney when tests revealed she had cancer.
When Tracy Stuart said “I do” two decades ago, she never imagined fate would test their till death do us parts like it is now.
“People cannot believe that this has happened,” said Stuart.
The Nanaimo couple is now fighting for their lives after a heartbreaking double diagnosis. It all started when Richard Stuart, who is a diabetic, was told in September that his kidney function had plummeted and he’d need a donor.
“I was like pick my mouth off the floor yeah,” said Richard Stuart recalling his shock.
“I’m not sick,” he said.
His wife remembers the moment he told her.
“I went what, what?” said Tracy Stuart.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Tracy decided she’d be the kidney donor. But the testing that’s required to give a kidney revealed Tracy had cancer.
“And I said ‘so I have cancer’ and she said yes and I go ‘can I donate still?'” said Tracy.
“And she said no.”
So now the Nanaimo woman is asking everyone she can if they will help her husband in the only way she can’t.
Tracy said her chemotherapy starts Thursday and they are still looking for a donor.
“So we’ll go to a restaurant, a waitress goes is there anything else you need? Anything else I can get for you? And I go husband needs a kidney transplant,” she said.
Stuart said she is certain that kidney will come since her husband’s life depends on it.
“If you think about donating and saving a life, please,” said Richard, encouraging people interested in donating a kidney to email Vancouver Coastal Health.
“So I’m worrying about him, he’s worrying about me,” said Tracy.
“My parents are worrying about both of us.”
Friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help the couple through these tough financial times, as they both go through treatment, and beyond the donations remarkably there are people offering to get tested to see if they are compatible to give Richard a kidney.
“We are going to fight. We are going to beat it,” said Tracy.
“We are going to get his kidney.”
Skye Ryan
