For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health – these traditional vows could not ring any more true for this married couple.
And no-one takes these legally binding words more seriously than Scott Chafian.
According to WTKR, Mr Chafian is gifting his wife of 20 years, Cindy, the present of a lifetime: a kidney.
Mrs Chafian was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease when she was in her twenties, which will see her excessive cysts shut down her kidneys over time.
This condition has subjected Mrs Chafian, who lives with her husband in Virginia in the US, to surgery after surgery, and spending the last two years on a dialysis machine.
And as she grew more and more ill, Mr Chafian’s heart continued to break.
“It’s devastating because of course you always see your spouse before you and to not have anything, it was just a feeling of helplessness,” he says.
It was this heartbreak that was the catalyst for Mr Chafian to ask the doctors if he could donate his kidney to his very-sick wife.
“Did you just say I’m a match to my wife and this is going to work?” he remembers when the doctors told him he could.
“And it was and for me such a wonderful experience to have this opportunity to something for the person I love more than anybody.”
This actually happened six years ago when Mrs Chafian admits that she wasn’t ready to take her husband’s kidney… that is, until now.
“I hit kind of rock bottom and I looked at him and I said, ‘Okay, I’m ready,'” she says.
As reported by Refinery 29, the couple’s surgeries are scheduled for January 24, one day before their 20th wedding anniversary.
We’re wishing Mr and Mrs Chafian the very best ahead of their life-changing operations.
