Asbestosis does not cause symptoms like that. Basically, the asbestos enters the lungs and embeds it’s fibres into the lungs and stays there forever. It could take many years for lung cancer to form. Those symptoms are from something else, but not asbestos.

Why is he cutting into old stucco? Can he have it tested or request that it be tested? What you would do is take some and put it in a ziplock bag and bring it to an envirmonmental company that does asbestos testing. It would cost about $100 or so. And the results would be back in a day or so.