My name is Tania. This campaign is for my brother Scott, to give him the means to recover at home after his recent hospitalization in the Intensive Care Unit.

At the age of three, Scott was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and has been insulin-dependent ever since. In December 2024 at the age of 53, he was diagnosed with CLL, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. CLL is a blood and bone marrow cancer that reduces the body’s ability to fight infections. Diabetes causes Scott’s cancer symptoms to be more acute and his treatment more complex.

Doctors say CLL isn’t hereditary, but our father lost his battle with CLL twenty years ago at the age of 57, and his father lost his battle with CLL as well, several years before.

When Scott was diagnosed with CLL, he was told he would have one year left to live without treatment. These are the worst words to hear from a doctor, but Scott has faced his cancer with contagious positivity, strength, and bravery, with the love and support of his wife Zuzana, their thirteen-year-old son, Ethan, and extended family.

Scott has worked throughout his cancer treatment despite enlarged Lymph nodes, swollen and painful joints, extreme lethargy, fever, vomiting, and two heart attacks. He works between specialist appointments, endless tests, and time in hospital, to support his wife and son. He has always had a strong work ethic, but somehow, it’s stronger than ever since being diagnosed with cancer.

Scott is a plumber by trade. He started his own plumbing and HVAC business fourteen years ago and was successful, but COVID, the economy, and now CLL have taken their toll, and he is now running a one-man operation.

Scott was hospitalized from August 25 to September 5. The day after his release he was back at work.

On September 14 he was readmitted to the hospital, this time in the ICU with an enlarged heart, kidneys functioning at 30%, and symptoms of Sepsis. He worked from his hospital bed on his cell phone.

No one can believe he’s still working, but as the only source of income for his family, Scott knows that every day he can’t make service calls, he gets closer to losing everything. He has no short-term or long-term disability available to him, no life insurance, no CPP, and not even EI. His savings are dwindling, and his home of the past fourteen years is up for sale.

I hope this campaign can help him take time off from work to rest and put his incredible energy into healing, so that one day soon he'll go into remission. Recent tests have ruled out a secondary form of cancer, and his doctors hope he will be released from hospital this week. But he still has a long way to go.

Scott has always helped his family, friends and community with a generosity of spirit that is as big as his smile and his laugh. Through his business he has donated labour and materials to projects for Habitat for Humanity, BC Housing, The Plea Non-Profit Society, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chilliwack, and the Alzheimer’s Society.

I hope that together we can help him now, when he is in greatest need. He has fought his whole life to be healthy. Let’s give him what relief we can from his financial burdens, so he can focus on his recovery.

Any money donated will be put toward his mortgage, household bills, car payments, groceries, and prescription medicines and supplies.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Tania