Pastor Chester's visit to Emergency Room, Hospitalization, and Biopsy Results

Pastor has been in the hospital for a few days. It looks like discharge may be tomorrow afternoon.

On Friday night, we called 811 (Triage nurse hotline) to talk through some abdominal pain he was experiencing. He'd been feeling pain on and off for weeks, and already seen our family doctor about it. The 811 nurse set up a virtual doctors appointment for us that evening, and we were told to get to the ER in the morning. Chester couldn't sleep due to the pain, so he left for emergency around 4am Saturday.

Initially at ER, some issue with the gallbladder or appendix was suspected. However, a CT scan on Saturday revealed a blockage caused by a mass in the large intestine. Chester was transferred to a hospital room and given an IV for pain management, antibiotics, and hydration. He had more imaging done, and wasn't allowed to eat for several days. A procedure was scheduled for Sunday to install a stent. This procedure went well, and provided eventual relief as well as biopsy results, which revealed colorectal adenocarcinoma - a type of colon cancer that's highly treatable.

The care for Chester has been excellent, he's at Rockyview Hospital in Calgary still as of today, and will soon be accessing care from the Cancer Centre in Calgary. He's now able to eat and almost off of pain medication. We hope to meet with oncology in the coming days. We met with a dietician today and feel good about how to avoid issues in the coming weeks.

We are using this blog to keep our church, family, and friends updated in one place. (Unfortunately we had to switch from CaringBridge because of their misleading adds and asks for money to maintain their site. We are Not asking for any donations or money.)

We appreciate your prayers. We are very grateful for those who have monitor-sat and helped Anna get to the hospital more often, especially on Sunday afternoon when Thirpam and Camilla were MVPs taking the kids to the splash park.

We place all things into God's hands, and invite you to continue to bring Chester before Him. Pastor shares this prayer for you: "Lord, help us to accept this challenging circumstance as part of God's will. We trust that you are with us, and will bless us through this. We ask for God's Spirit to give us all that we need to continue following Jesus, together."