Couple Marries 13 Years After Meeting as Teenage Kidney Transplant Patients: 'Couldn't See My Life Without Him'

“I immediately was infatuated by him — I had a huge crush on him,” Regan Nicholson recalled of the first time she spoke to her now-husband, Brad Nicholson

• One Canadian couple met as sick teens both in need of kidney transplants and soon fell in love

• At 16 years old, Brad Nicholson suffered from 16 percent kidney function, and his future wife, Regan, had creatinine levels that were “sky high," meaning both would need dialysis treatments and kidney transplants

• After Brad and Regan met in December 2011, the pair became "inseparable," leading up to their future wedding more than a decade after they first met

After meeting as teens who were both in need of kidney transplants, one couple exchanged their “I do’s” more than a decade later.

Thirteen years after Brad Nicholson and his now-wife, Regan, met, the couple opened up about their love story, which began when they were 16 years old both in need of kidney transplants at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, per The Toronto Star.

At 16 years old, Brad discovered that he only had 16 percent kidney function and he was in need of dialysis treatments and a transplant, according to the publication. Meanwhile, at the same time, Regan wasn’t feeling like herself and soon learned that creatinine levels were “sky high” — a sign of kidney failure — and she too would need dialysis and a transplant.

In November 2011, Brad had waited for the kidney for five months, which he received from his cousin, Stephanie Laferriere, The Toronto Star noted. And at the same time, just a mere few days apart, Regan was completing her six months of dialysis.

Regan’s nurse, Susan Ackerman, who wanted to assist in the teen girl’s adjustment, shared Brad’s story and proposed the pair could support each other, per the publication.

“Me, being the shy person I am, (waited until) my last day at the hospital to be like, 'OK, fine, I’ll talk to this guy,' ” Regan told The Toronto Star. “I’m being discharged. I never have to see him again after this.”

By December, they finally met while Brad recovered from surgery and Regan waited for hers. During their first meeting, they “hit it off almost instantly,” Regan said.

“I immediately was infatuated by him — I had a huge crush on him,” she confessed to the publication.

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But their relationship didn’t end there as soon, the two were dating long distance. However, none of that came until Brad confessed his feelings for Regan in February 2013—eight months after Regan’s mother donated her kidney to the teen.

“We were pretty inseparable ever since we started dating,” Regan told The Toronto Star of the early days of their relationship. “It’s been really easy ever since.”

Although the pair lived in the same city, neither could drive, so they relied on texting and FaceTiming every day, with occasional in-person meetings. Then they were both accepted into Toronto universities, Regan to the University of Toronto, and Brad to George Brown, and they were finally able to see each other on a daily basis.

11 years after their first meeting, Brad decided to pop the question.

“I had this whole plan laid out in my head. We’re gonna take a hike, and I was going to propose along the lake,” he noted of the March 2022 proposal. “I didn’t make it that far.” Brad proposed in the parking lot before their walk, which the couple noted was done in “typical Brad fashion.”

“It was really sweet,” Regan remarked to the outlet. “I think it’s because he noticed there weren’t any people around.”

“I never thought we would end up dating and getting married,” Regan added. “I couldn’t see my life without him.”

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Since their successful surgeries and treatments, Brad began a job with Scotiabank as a senior financial analyst, and Regan became a surgical administrative coordinator for SickKids. The facility is also known as the Hospital for Sick Children, and is affiliated with the University of Toronto, the same facility that treated the couple years earlier.

“I truly wanted to work there and help kids in the future essentially have the best care they can, in a place that gave so much to me as well,” she said.

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