For context, on Jan. 30, during an episode of his podcast, The Why With Dwyane Wade, the former NBA basketball player recalled a routine checkup that revealed a life-altering cancer diagnosis.
Dwyane admitted that he hadn’t had any medical checkups since playing for the NBA in 2019. It was his father undergoing surgery that prompted him to finally schedule an exam for himself.
“I didn’t go in for my kidneys,” Dwyane said. “But because I did the full-body scan, they saw something.” Surgery was the only solution to determine if it was cancerous, and on Dec. 18 2023, Dwyane had life-saving surgery to remove 40% of his kidney.
On Feb. 26. Gabrielle appeared on Today and shared how Dwyane’s “traumatic” diagnosis affected their family.
“It was year nine of our marriage, and he’s talked about it,” Gabrielle said. “Year nine was very hard. When he mentioned year nine being hard, he didn’t reveal his cancer diagnosis and his own cancer journey.”
On Aug. 30, 2024, Gabrielle posted photos and videos to Instagram to celebrate their 10th anniversary. In a video included in the post, Dwyane told the crowd, “Year nine was hard for us,” he told a crowd while standing on a balcony. “We were kind of reminiscing how we got to even here.”
It wasn’t clear what hardship Dwyane was referencing back then until this year when he revealed his diagnosis. Talking with Jenna Bush Hager and guest co-host Heather McMahan, Gabrielle said, “Obviously, him getting that diagnosis was traumatic for him, you know, being faced with your own mortality in your early 40s,” she said. “You’re like, ‘Am I going to be here to see my family? Who am I without this big life? Without this healthy body?'”
“But you also don’t understand the journey and the toll it takes on your marriage, on your family, on your kids,” Gabrielle continued. “He was a little more hesitant to take us on that journey of healing.”
“That level of vulnerability, to go through removal of a good chunk of his kidney and the healing that involved, he needed us to be OK with his vulnerability. But more than that, he needed to be OK with his vulnerability,” she said. “It was a challenge to give grace and receive it.”
Gabrielle and Dwyane have been married for 10 years and have a blended family of four children — daughter Kaavia James and three children from Dwyane’s previous relationships, Zaire, Zaya, and Xavier.