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| A Turn in the Road, An Involuntary Adventure |
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| Chris Hammon / Leadership for an Emerging Future |
| Written by A. Christopher Hammon. D.Min. |
| Monday, 15 March 2010 09:21 |
 A late evening phone call from my physician introduced a turn in the road that set me off on an adventure not of my choosing. The summer and fall had been intense months of continuing to implement transitions, work toward introducing new seminars, and working with Doctor of Ministry candidates in the process of writing their dissertations. In the midst of everything else I was struggling with how to articulate new understandings of listening at generative levels and other insights that I was deriving from my continued reflection and dialogue around Otto Scharmer’s theory of the U in terms of leading from an emerging future.Following a recent routine physical my physician had ordered an abdominal CT scan as a follow up to a bit of microscopic hematuria to check for potential problems with my bladder and kidneys. They were fine but the hour of the phone call and the way that he started out, “I got your test results back and we are seeing something there that we need to talk about” screamed, “Uh oh!” “You appear to have a rare condition known as pseudomyxoma peritonei,” my physician continued. “It is serious but it is treatable.” That sounded like good news; at least it wasn’t life threatening. He went on to talk about the nature of this condition, one that he had not seen in thirty years of practice, and how he needed to refer me to a surgeon with whom he works. From what he could see on the scans there appeared to be a tumor on my appendix that was secreting mucinous material into my peritoneum, which would keep making more mucinous material that would eventually crowd out all of those other organs packed into that area causing them to shut down. I had a “Trouble with Tribbles” story taking place inside me and left untreated the condition is 100% fatal. The next few days were a flurry of activity; talking to the surgeon, talking with my physician, doing online research, talking with my spouse, and being referred to a surgical oncologist that specialized in treating conditions like this. The online research helped me learn a lot more about this new adventure that I was on but it also educated me both in just how serious this condition is and the approach that we would decide to use once we talked with the surgical oncologist. The surgical oncologist I was referred to, Dr. Charles Scoggins, is an impressive surgeon and also a professor at the University of Louisville Medical School. Because I was in very good health otherwise, I was a candidate for the approach of choice, a relatively new procedure known as the Sugarbaker Process that combined surgical tumor debulking with 90 minutes of heated intra peritoneal chemotherapy. We scheduled the procedure for January 13. My job, as described by Dr. Scoggins, was to recover since their experience with this procedure was that it really took a lot out of people who had undergone it. Looking back, I can say that this procedure has earned its nickname of being the “mother of all surgeries.” A life-threatening illness, major surgery, chemotherapy, and a prolonged period of recovery that included sixteen days in the hospital was not how I planned to start 2010; but it was my good fortune to do so since it has given me the opportunity to hopefully add at least another twenty years to my life and to view each of those years as a gift. Cancer is very rare in my family medical history; we have a lot of heart disease that has ended a number of lives before sixty – including my mother and my youngest brother. And for those who avoid the early end of life from heart disease we have a significant history of later life Alzheimer’s. The surgery was more extensive than anyone anticipated; the big surprise being a tumor in my diaphragm that suggested a high potential for malignancy. The good news is that all of the pathology reports came back non-malignant and I am recovering well. The surgeon has me back on my recumbent bicycle as part of my rehabilitation. Life is good, but this experience has been and continues to be an adventure that is challenging me to learn and adapt to that emerging future. Even as an involuntary adventure, and perhaps even more so as an adventure that I did not choose, this experience has pushed me in several directions of new learning; all of which are begging for assimilation and integration. And that means that I need to be writing my way through this exploration to help me develop a deeper awareness and understanding as well as share insights that I encounter. In the midst of this adventure I found myself discovering a new perspective on integrative, holistic care; I am seeing more of a digital era style collaboration that includes key roles for the patient. Since this is a key part of our mission at the Oates Institute, I look forward to sharing more on this. While the work that I have been doing with narrative research in ministry over the last half dozen years has focused my attention on the significance and frequent absence of pastoral listening, the hospital context provided a diverse and significant clinical lab for observing listening practices. Again, this is taking me deeper into an area of the Oates Institute’s mission and ministry leadership that I have been exploring. My workaholism and my tendency to overlook physical symptoms that I should pay attention to played a significant role in the surgery being more extensive than anticipated. By writing off symptoms as just the effects of too much stress, I came close to crossing the line of being able to recover. Friends and family have been calling my attention to this for some time, but now they have my attention. One of the books that my wife, Annie, gave me as “recovery reading” was Stuart Brown’s Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (2009). It was just what the doctor ordered and I look forward to sharing more about that with you. Coming out of the initial phases of this experience-- we are looking at 2010 as a recovery year--I am aware that I need to make some lifestyle changes in how I integrate work and play, passion and innovation, and calling and ministry as I seek to learn from and adapt to the emerging future. This takes me back to Scharmer’s Theory U and the close circle of friends that includes the clergy peer group exploring how we apply Theory U in practical application. The question that we are asking ourselves is how do we implement real, sustained, and meaningful change? This is the journey I am on and I look forward to reporting on what I find.
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