Wife’s cancer shock ends kidney donation for husband
Tracy took Richard Stuart to be her husband 22 years ago on New Year’s Day, in sickness and in health, until death do they part.
When the Nanaimo couple discovered Richard needed a kidney, Tracy was first in line to be the donor. Then doctors found the cancer.
The Stuarts met in Prince George in 1995 while working at a Sears store, where he was a loss-prevention manager and she led the sales department.
Last summer, a doctor told Richard, 57, who has Type 2 Diabetes, that his kidney function was dropping and he needed a transplant. Tracy, 55, was a good match and surgery was expected this month.
But during a battery of tests in recent months to determine that Tracy was healthy, doctors found an abnormality. An exam of her bone marrow revealed an incurable, multiple myeloma — cancer of the plasma cells.
“That was quite a blow,” she said. “They rushed us through the transplant meetings and everything. They were just fantastic. So everybody was absolutely shocked.”
Both are now on short-term disability as they struggle to find a donor and get treatment. Richard is one of about 530 people in B.C. currently waiting for a kidney transplant.
With his kidney function now at eight per cent, Richard needs dialysis three times a week — each requiring a fourhour hospital stay — while he waits for a new catheter to heal so he can start dialysis at home.
The couple has plenty of support, they said. Tracy has two sons from a previous marriage, aged 29 and 31, who have always been close with her and Richard. Her parents live down the street and Richard’s sister and brother-in-law live in town.
The couple’s friend, Debbie, started a GoFundMe campaign, which has raised $4,000 in just over two weeks, to help cover costs related to their health care.
Richard’s “work family” at London Drugs is throwing a $15 burger-and-beer fundraiser Feb. 20 from 6-9 p.m. at The Queen’s pub.
And they have each other. “Our marriage is so tight, it is so strong,” Tracy said. “All you can do is be there for each other. I know he’s got my back and he knows that I’m going to be there for him no matter what.”
Meantime, Tracy said she’ll need a stem-cell transplant along with chemotherapy. She hopes to be in remission soon so that she can return to managing the local PetSmart in the spring.
Both Tracy and Richard are urging their fellow British Columbians to consider donating a kidney, and to contact kidneydonornurse@vch.ca or donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca to find out how.
“We’ve got to deal with what we’ve got to deal with, it’s part of life,” Richard said. “All this, I would hope, brings awareness to kidney donations and that it’s one of the easiest organs to donate and save somebody else’s life.”