WestView Health Foundation Annual Appeal 2026

Every Moment
Matters

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An ordinary Saturday morning changed everything for Daylene and her family.

Now, she is sharing Curtis’s story because no family should have to spend hours waiting for answers when every moment matters.

Curtis was supposed to take his little girl to dance class that morning.

He had already been out for an appointment. On his way home, he picked up coffee for himself and his wife, Daylene, and pancakes for their daughter.

It was an ordinary morning for a young family.

Curtis had been experiencing terrible headaches—worse, Daylene now realizes, than she fully understood at the time. But headaches are easy to dismiss. Life was busy. There was dance class to get to. Daylene headed off to work.

About an hour later, Curtis texted her. His head really hurt. He arranged for his mom to take their daughter to dance and decided to go to WestView Hospital.

It would be the last ordinary morning their family would ever have.

At WestView, the healthcare team worked to understand what was happening and ease Curtis’s pain. But they were missing one critical diagnostic tool:

A CT scanner.

To receive a CT scan, Curtis would have to be transported to another hospital. And while they waited, his condition began to deteriorate.

By the time Daylene arrived, Curtis was trying to speak, but she couldn’t understand him.

Then he stopped opening his eyes.

He stopped responding.

The medical team knew he needed a higher level of care and made the decision to transfer him to the University of Alberta Hospital. Daylene followed.

When she arrived at the U of A, a nurse led her and Curtis’s mother into a small family room. Daylene remembers that room vividly.

She called her own mother, who had once been a nurse. “They’ve taken me into a room.”

Her mother understood what that likely meant. Soon, two doctors walked through the door.

Curtis had suffered a devastating stroke.

He was only 44 years old.

Later, a neurologist sat beside Daylene, held her hands and showed her Curtis’s CT scan. For the first time, Daylene could see the magnitude of what had happened to the man she loved.

There was nothing more that could be done.

The following morning, Daylene made the unimaginable decision to remove her husband from life support. She was told it could take some time. Curtis had a strong heart.

He was gone in 14 minutes.

Daylene believes, in her heart, that he did that for her.

Curtis and Daylene had been together for 20 years.

They had fallen in love when they were young. Curtis already had a little boy when they began dating, and Daylene remembers thinking, We’re a family. We’re going to be a great family.

For years, they hoped to have another child. They went through fertility treatments and disappointment until, after nearly 15 years, something they had almost stopped believing would happen finally did.

Their daughter was born in November 2020. Their miracle baby.

Curtis loved being her dad. He loved his kids. He loved Daylene. He loved the Oilers and his Tim Hortons. He was the big guy everyone described as a teddy bear—the person who called or texted just to make sure you were okay.

He was a husband, a dad, and a friend.

And he never got to see his little girl’s fifth birthday.

Today, Daylene talks about Curtis every day with their daughter. She has photographs and videos to help keep her dad’s memory alive.

And she has chosen to share the most painful day of her life for another reason.

She doesn’t want another family to experience those hours of uncertainty.

Daylene is very clear: she does not blame the doctors or nurses who cared for Curtis. “The medical team did what they could with what they had.”

She also knows that having a CT scanner at WestView may not have changed Curtis’s ultimate outcome.

But when asked what it could have changed, her answer was immediate.

“I think if we would have had a scan, we would have gotten time.”

Time.

Time for answers. Time for doctors to see what was happening inside Curtis’s brain. Time for a family to understand that their lives were about to change forever.

Curtis arrived at WestView that morning and wasn’t transferred until later that afternoon.

When someone you love is experiencing a medical emergency, hours matter.

Minutes matter.

Every moment matters.

That is why WestView Health Foundation is working to bring CT imaging to WestView Hospital & Continuing Care.

Because the next person who needs a CT won’t be a statistic.

It will be someone’s Curtis.

Someone’s husband.

Someone’s wife.

Someone’s mom or dad.

Someone’s child.

Maybe someone you love.

Most of us don’t think about whether our local hospital has a CT scanner when we’re making coffee in the morning, taking our children to activities or heading off to work.

Daylene didn’t either.

Until the day her family desperately needed one.

After Curtis died, their community surrounded Daylene and her children. Friends, neighbours and even people they had never met showed up. They brought meals. They offered kindness. They helped carry a family through an unimaginable loss.

For Daylene, bringing CT care home is another way for this community to take care of one another.

As she says:

“It’s not just for me and it’s not just for you. It’s for everyone. If this can save anybody’s life, that should be enough.”

Will you help?

Your gift to WestView Health Foundation’s CT Scanner Campaign will help bring this vital diagnostic technology to WestView Hospital & Continuing Care—so our healthcare professionals have another critical tool available when a patient comes through their doors needing answers.

You may never know whose life your gift touches.

But someday, another family may walk through the doors of WestView on what began as a perfectly ordinary morning.

And because people like you chose to give, their story may be different.

Please make your gift today.

For Curtis.

For Daylene.

For their children.

And for every family who calls our community home.

Because when someone we love needs care,

Every Moment Matters.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Executive Director, Westview Health Foundation

P.S. Curtis was only 44 when an ordinary Saturday morning became the last day his family would ever know life as it had been. Please help us bring CT care home so this vital diagnostic technology is here when the next family needs it. Your gift today can help make that possible.