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A metro couple is navigating an unimaginable health battle.

This latest chapter of their story includes another medical curve ball. They're both public servants: One is a firefighter, while the other is a public school teacher.

Their friends hope that their giving nature is repaid as they fight their next battle.

"Two perfect people meet each other, find each other, fall in love, have all these dreams of creating this life, then life keeps handing them challenges,” said Quinn Texmo, a friend of the couple.

That's Nick and Rachel Howe's story summed up in a few seconds.

But, there is so much more.

They met in 2005, around the same time Nick discovered a brain tumor. Doctors said it would be OK and eventually, the two married.

“In 2017, he started swelling up, like it was like half of a basketball on the side of his neck,” Texmo said.

Nick was diagnosed with lymphoma. Treatment after treatment failed, until a clinical trial called CAR T-cell therapy.

“This CAR T-cell therapy has now become a standard of practice,” Texmo said.

Nick became a patient advocate, helping others through their diagnosis.

“He had come out the other side and the only thing that he knew to do with that was to give back,” Texmo said.

He continued to work as a firefighter and Rachel kept teaching.

Then in April, Nick's head cold wouldn't go away.

“He goes into the hospital, goes downhill fast, was in a medically-induced coma. They put him on ECMO machine. He had machines that were doing all of the function in his body,” Texmo said.

Nick received a heart transplant and was sent home.

Days later, he was back in the hospital. His new heart was failing.

“He was there for about 12 days. I believe like that at some point he's like, I can't feel my legs,” Texmo said.

Doctors told the couple that Nick had had a spinal stroke and was paralyzed from the waist down.

He will recover, but their home must be renovated to help him live independently.

“I can't help him walk again. I can tell their story and I can make the ask. They are getting ready to redo their basement for a zero entry shower and a livable space for Nick to be in,” Texmo said.

Firefighters will help to get the space ready.

“That's incredible that community has rallied around them that way. They do need to install another stair lift. That's a $9,000 piece of equipment,” Texmo said.

Texmo set up a GoFundMe for Nick's recovery, saying they've never let any diagnosis harden their hearts.

“For two people who give and give and give to their community — that for one minute, they get to feel the love and support from that community that they have served their entire lives come back on them,” Texmo said.

“They are two of the most positive people I have ever met. The strength that he has had mentally throughout all of this is, I mean, it's nothing short of admirable."

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