Jamie Aten - A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience

A
WALKING
DISASTER

WHAT SURVIVING KATRINA AND CANCER
TAUGHT ME ABOUT FAITH AND
RESILIENCE

Jamie Aten, PhD

Templeton Press
300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 500
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
www.templetonpress.org

2018 by Jamie Aten

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

A Walking Disaster is a work of nonfiction. While all the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

Set in ITC Stone Informal by Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959566
ISBN: 978-1-59947-544-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-1-59947-545-5

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

CHAPTER 1

Evacuation Impossible

My Body Was Ground Zero

F OR WEEKS, Id been experiencing sharp pains that shot down my legs. I thought maybe I had a pinched nerve in my back. The pain wasnt going away, and I started to experience discomfort in my pelvic area and often felt sick to my stomach. I was hoping to get some resolution about what was wrong.

The doctor whod performed a colonoscopy earlier in the week had assured me, right before I was knocked out for the procedure, that the chances of cancer in someone of my age and health were less than 1 percent. Because I was a young guy without any previous health issues, those odds sounded about right to me. Wed isolate the problem, treat it, and Id be able to get back up to full speed, personally and professionally.

Married ten years, I was the thirty-five-year-old father of three young girls. It was the end of my second year on the faculty of Wheaton College, and I was energetic about heading the schools new Humanitarian Disaster Institute I founded. My wife, Kelly, was about to begin working toward her masters degree in nurse midwifery, and life in the Aten household was moving along at full throttle. My fatigue and pain, unwelcome intruders, would soon be in our rearview mirror.

Yet as I began to emerge from the fog of the anesthesia following my procedure, I heard the doctor whod just performed my colonoscopy informing Kelly that hed found cancer.

Cancer? I interrupted, only to fall back into unconsciousness.

Again and again I would fall back under the spell of the anesthesia, momentarily, only to reawaken and interrupt the doctor trying to finish breaking the bad news to Kelly. Seven times in a row I startled awake, not remembering what I had just heard, and ask, Cancer? Though I only have a memory of hearing cancer once, Kelly shared the absurd routine with me later.

Even if Id been more lucid, the drug-induced routine was a telling expression of my mental state. I felt like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, reliving the same day ad nauseam, had it been a horror flick. Whether groggy or sharp-witted, I simply did not have a category for the information I was receiving. Hadnt the wildly unlikely odds the doctor had shared meant that Id be fine? Rare, unfortunate disaster befell other people, not me. And yet, in that moment, my plans for my life went out the window.

Yes, I was a goal-oriented Type-A person whod carefully mapped out the future I saw for myself. But imagining a future in which we are not afflicted by disaster or crises isnt the sole property of advance planners. The author of Proverbs 19:21 announces, Many are the plans in a persons heart, but it is the LORDS purpose that prevails. Though its natural to expect a future free of the unexpected, it necessarily means we are unprepared for the inevitable crises we will face. David Entwistle, a friend and colleague of mine, conducts an exercise with his students where he asks them to imagine their lives five, ten, twenty-five, and fifty years into the future. He told me once, No one has ever talked about being divorced, widowed, having Alzheimers, having cancer, or even just being feeble. He added, Bad things happen, and they will happen to each of us. But by and large, we neither expect this nor plan for this. He was right. I had intellectually understood the statistics about people who would be forced to face hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and even colon cancer, and yet I wasas we all arecompletely unprepared for the unexpected. We are so bad at estimating risk that the experts have named our response the ostrich effect. Burying our heads in the sand, we mistakenly ignore real potential threats.

The doctor referred me to an oncologist to further interpret the results. The following day, as Kelly drove me to the cancer center at Central DuPage Hospital Cancer Center to meet with Dr. Patel, I was nauseous and felt a shooting pain in my pelvis.

I had no family history of cancer. The worst health problem I ever faced was a broken bone in my hand, in fifth grade, from playing basketball. A million questions swirled through my mind as we pulled into the hospital parking lot. Kelly drove around the lot awhile before scoring a spot just a hundred yards from the front entrance of the cancer center.

Each step between the car and the door were heavy with the weight of the unknown.

A greeter at the information desk had pointed us in the direction of Dr. Patels office. Wed set out as if wed understood, but as we got farther from her desk, signs reading Oncology, Infusion, and Radiology all began to blur together.

When we finally found our way to the oncologists office, we stood at the receptionists desk waiting to be checked in.

Can I help you? she asked.

I looked away when she leaned over her desk to make eye contact.

Whats your name? she continued.

Jamie Aten, I said tentatively, as if unsure of whether I wanted to be him.

Still trying to make eye contact with me, the receptionist asked, Why are you here?

Id not expected the question.

Umm... , I stammered, searching my mental Rolodex for the newest words in my daily vocabulary. Cancer or tumor? Pelvis or colon or rectum?

I chose against cancer, as if speaking it aloud would afford it more power. I also steered away from both the broad pelvis and overly specific rectum.

They found a tumor in my colon.

The word caught in my throat, and I felt a welling behind my eyes.

Alright, she replied, glancing up at me and handing me a clipboard. Fill out your health history and then bring it back to me.

I went to reach for the clipboard but my arm and hand fell numb by my side. After a second, I started to reach for it again with my shaky arm. After a gentle glimpse and slight reassuring smile that started at the corner of her mouth, Kelly stepped in and took the clipboard for me.

Turning to scan the room, Kelly and I beelined toward the last pair of available seats.

A full year before I was diagnosed, I had visited a specialist for the pelvic and stomach discomfort Id been experiencing. His advice? Youre so young, dont worry about it. You just need more fiber in your diet. Because of my age, hed overlooked the possibilitygranted, a slim onethat my symptoms could signal something more serious. So he sent me home with some packets of dissolvable fiber to stir into water from time to time. The prescription provided some relief. When the symptoms returned, accompanied by shooting pain in my legs and pelvic region, my general practitioner suggested a CT scan and colonoscopy. The CT scan revealed a mass resting on a nerve bundle. Had it not been for the shooting pains in my legs, I may never had known I had cancer.