Carly’s House.

On January 1st, 2025 — her birthday — my wife Carly became very sick, very fast while we were in Japan. Within a single day she was rushed to a hospital in Kyoto, where she required emergency surgery. Doctors removed a mass of tumors from her abdomen, and several suspicious lymph nodes.

She spent the next 14 days in that Kyoto hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness, often forgetting what she had been told. I never left her side.

She wanted our family to have dinner together every Sunday — and she wanted to give back more to the community.

Less than a month later, the worst news was confirmed: Stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma — a rare and aggressive cancer that is always fatal.

We continued searching for hope, and she was eventually accepted into a promising clinical trial — until tragedy struck again. During a routine bone marrow biopsy before the trial, doctors discovered a second cancer: CLL. That disqualified her, and once again our world collapsed.

Carly needed purpose. She remembered her promise to give back. At the same time, the Nanaimo Hospital Foundation urgently needed to raise $2.9 million for a SPEC/CT machine — critical for early cancer detection. A cruel coincidence: a machine like that might have helped save her.

So I created the Homes For Life initiative — aligning Carly’s real estate business and my real estate marketing company with a mission to support the hospital. More than 1,000 donations came in. Combined with other volunteers and fundraisers, the full $2.9 million was raised. We did it.

Carly began heavy chemotherapy — two brutal protocols, DHAP and CHOP-R, alternating every three weeks. It destroyed her immune system. She lost her hair. She endured migraines so severe she spent 12 hours in the ER at a time. Through all of it, she stayed as positive as anyone possibly could.

I stayed by her side through every round — every needle, every crash, every tiny victory — right up until she finished the heavy chemo in September 2025. After everything she’s fought through, we’re finally at a place where she only needs treatment every three months instead of every three weeks.

As we drove to chemo, Carly and I often talked about how lucky we were to live just 15 minutes from the hospital. We could go home after treatment. Rest in our own bed. Not everyone had that.

We met patients who drove hours each way for treatment. Patients staying in hotel rooms alone, walking through lobbies while violently sick. People suffering without privacy, comfort, or dignity.

What if we donated this home as a safe, private, dignified place for out-of-town cancer patients to stay during treatment?