As Evelyn Mann drove Father J. Collin Poston to an eye appointment in February, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong.
The administrative assistant at St. Bartholomew in Manchester noticed his dramatic weight loss, pale complexion and declining health. Knowing he was still weeks away from scheduled testing, she urged him to seek immediate medical attention. Doctors soon discovered he was suffering from severe ulcerative colitis – a condition that would require emergency surgery and nearly cost him his life.
“Thank goodness we got him there because he was very sick and he was about to go septic,” Mann said.
After a two-month absence, Father Poston returned to St. Bartholomew during Holy Week – grateful for his recovery and for the people he believes helped save his life.
“I nearly died, actually. It was pretty bad. Thanks be to God, my secretary Evelyn, she was my guardian angel in some sense. She took me into the hospital and brought me because she thought I didn’t look well,” Father Poston said.
The crisis had been building for weeks. Father Poston had been experiencing worsening abdominal pain and gastrointestinal issues, and was scheduled for additional testing in three weeks. On the day of his follow-up appointment at The Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore – having already undergone three surgeries for a detached retina in the past two years – Mann grew increasingly alarmed.
“When I got there, his color was really bad and he lost about 20 pounds in two weeks. I was a little concerned with that,” she said.
After thinking and praying about it, Father Poston agreed to go to the emergency room. Within days, surgeons removed 95 percent of his colon.
“She said, ‘We need to do this emergency surgery, pretty much immediately.’ And I said, ‘What are my other options?’ And she said, ‘You have no other options,’ ” Father Poston recalled of the conversation with his surgeon, Dr. Amanda Grigoli.
Mann, who helped him gather his medical power of attorney information, deflects any suggestion that she saved his life.
“People have said to me, ‘Do you know that you saved his life?’ And I say, ‘I don’t feel like that – I just did the right thing.’ God must have put me there in that position for a reason,” she said.
Father Poston spent two weeks in the hospital, receiving the anointing of the sick multiple times and welcoming visits from friends, family, parishioners, fellow priests and his Pomeranian, Otto. He described the experience as deeply spiritual.
“Whenever you go through suffering like this, it does make you more grateful to God for every day of your life, because every day is a gift,” he said. “That’s kind of what I’ve been trying to focus on. Each day is a new day.”
Jordan Taylor, director of evangelization and youth ministry at St. Bartholomew, said parishioners poured out their support throughout his recovery. Area priests also pitched in to provide pastoral care in Father Poston’s absence.
“It’s been a beautiful thing to watch people just dropping things off, doing all sorts of things for him,” Taylor remembered. “Cards started coming into the parish center, flowers were dropped off, food was dropped off regularly. People volunteered to watch his dog”
Mann said it was Father Poston’s faith that carried him through.
“Nothing shook it,” she said. “Not one time did I ever hear him say, ‘I’m down and I can’t get through this.’ or ‘Why did this happen to me?’ Not once.”
After leaving the hospital, Father Poston recovered at the residence of Father Jerry Francik, pastor of Sacred Heart in Glyndon.
“It’s been great to be back,” he said. “I missed my parish. When I first came back at Mass, everybody clapped, because they were happy to see me back again, which is really touching. And my parish has been very patient with me. I’m overjoyed to be back.”
Father Poston is now adjusting to life with an ileostomy bag, working to regain the nearly 35 pounds he lost and preparing for a J-pouch reversal surgery in November. He hopes the experience will make him a more compassionate priest.
“I’ve been on a journey here, but it is a journey and there are many chapters in the book,” he said. “I just hope there are more chapters than less coming up. I hope to continue to grow through this and learn from it, whatever spiritual little gold nuggets he wants me to attain and use through this. I could have died, but I’m here, so I guess that means God has a good plan for me.”
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