By Cheryl Jahn

Kordyban Lodge approaching a decade

Dec 9, 2022 | 3:08 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – “Well, you get your annual checkups and you get the [finger waggle],” explains Bill Howell, a resident of FCort St. James. “That’s where they found it.”

That was June. When Howell began his cancer journey. In fact, he had just undergone radiation at the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North minutes before this interview. He is also a resident of Kordyban Lodge.

There are only seven such facilities in Canada, four of which are in BC. This one is the only one outside the Lower Mainland.

“Largely we see people from all over northern B.C from as far away as Prince Rupert, Fort Nelson, Fort Saint John and Creek Williams,” says Jodi Drover, Client Services Coordinator for the Lodge. “Like we get them from all over northern B.C. so we don’t get to see a lot of the locals that are undergoing cancer journeys.”

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Located a parking lot away from where the treatment is delivered means everything to the patients who are often strangers in a strange place.

“Yeah, it’s actually really, really important,” says Drover. “I think our location and where the B.C. cancer agency is, is so important because our guests are going over there on a daily basis for their treatments or their appointments, what have you, or to visit their loved one that’s maybe hospitalized. So it’s just a hop, skip and jump right out our back gate to the front door of the B.C. Cancer Agency and for them to return as well so they can walk basically straight across the parking lot under a covered pathway.”

At the front door, there’s a gong. Residents ring it once for every week they’re in the Lodge. And the residents become family over that time.

“The people and the people that you meet here and the access to the clinic is only less than a half-a-block walk. You get over there, you come home, you sit down on the couch here with the rest of them and ask them how their day went. And everybody has the same common appeal where you’re here for the same cause, and that causes cancer.”

Minutes before this interview, Bill had just undergone radiation at the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North. It’s the reason places like Kordyban Lodge exist, a place Bill never thought he’d find himself months before. “And before that, I never thought about cancer,” says Howell, with tears in his eyes. T

he Canadian Cancer Society is undergoing a fundraising campaign, as “cancer never takes a holiday.” If you wish to donate to the likes of the Kordyban Lodge, go to cancer.ca/holiday