In 2004, Bawley Point’s David Wood saw the doctor for a routine prescription.

Despite suffering diabetes for 35 years, David “felt fantastic” and was active and healthy.

But when the doctor took his blood pressure, the news was dire.

“It was about 240 over 130,” David said.

“He said, ‘we’ve got to get you up to the hospital, mate, you’re just about to go’.”

David was diagnosed with renal failure; his kidneys no longer rid his body of toxins.

“I felt terrific; that’s why they call it the silent killer,” he said.

“It’s killing you and you don’t know it.”

David had only just met Julia, his now wife, and through a connection she was able to secure him treatment with the director of kidney transplantation at Royal Prince Alfred, Hospital, Professor Steven Chadban.

“He kept me off dialysis for roughly 10 years, just by exercise and eating the right food,” David said.

However in January last year, David’s condition worsened.

He started dialysis to remove blood from his body and filter it.

It was a huge decision, but the couple performed dialysis from their Bawley Point home.

Every second day, for six or seven hours, David would sit attached to the dialysis machine and without fail, Julia was by his side.

David said it soon started to get him down that he was “tying a young woman down” to his problem.

“To do that to someone is a big thing,” he said.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got this monkey on my back, I don’t have to give it to her’. In the end, I was more or less trying to shun her into going.

“I am 16 years older than Julia, and I’ve lived those 16 years.

“I want her to live them.

“I’m on the machine trying to prolong my life and prolonging her punishment.”

Julia, however, did not quite see it that way.

“I didn’t see it as punishment,” she said.

“When he was first diagnosed, I tried to donate a kidney to him.

“My kidney function wasn’t high enough for what he required, plus he didn’t want me to, because he thought it would detract from my life.”

Thankfully, in October last year, a donor match was found.

The night before the news, everything seemingly going wrong in his life, David had all but given up hope.

He prayed.

“I said ‘Lord, if I’ve done anything to upset you, I need to know what it is,” David said.

“I said, ‘you need to send me a sign that you and I are alright’.

“At eight o’clock the next morning, Julia answers the phone and it’s Steve (Chadban).

“I said ‘hey mate, I was just about to have breakfast’.

“He said ‘don’t have breakfast, get in the car, we’ve got you a kidney’.”

The couple is now doing all they can to spread the word on organ donation.

“Organ donation is a wonderful gift and we really need people to sign up for it,” Julia said.

“It may never happen, but if it does, that final gift they’re able to give is so unselfish and helps so many.

“For our part, we cannot say thank-you enough.

“The gift is so precious; we’ll be doing everything we can to look after it.”

Seven months on from his transplant, David is still juggling his anti-rejection medication.

But he and Julia are doing all they can to live life to its full, together.

“It is a love story,” Julia said.

“She’s become my best mate, and it if hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have worried about all this,” David said.

“I would have given up.”