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Make no plans, roll with the punches. That is the biggest lesson 1st Lt. Cristina Catana learned after her unexpected cancer diagnosis.
Originally from Trumbull, Connecticut, Catana is the youngest daughter of two immigrants from Romania. Growing up hearing stories of her parents’ struggles in a communist country motivated Catana to embark on what would ultimately become the American Dream.
“When I was deciding what my major in college would be, my parents suggested three options – I could be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer,” Catana said. Through family connections, Catana was able to shadow the construction work on various projects in New York, including the One World Trade Center, the Oculus World Trade Center, and a project on the Brooklyn Bridge. “As far as painting the picture of civil engineering being a dream job, I really got the absolute best of it.”
After ultimately deciding to pursue civil engineering at Manhattan College, Catana did the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program and commissioned in May of 2021 before going active duty in February of 2022. While exposure to the construction projects she shadowed gave her a taste of what civil engineering would be like, it was the gratitude she felt growing up in America that led her to join the Air Force.
Even though it wasn’t a direct driving force of her decision, Catana said that “being a military engineer is in my blood because everyone in my family is also an engineer.” One of her grandfathers was an architect and the other was an engineer in the Romanian military. Her great-grandfather was also a civil engineer in the military and the second-youngest general in Romania's history.
Catana’s first assignment was serving as the Readiness Flight Commander at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. She was in the process of planning and leading two global stage exercises when her world turned upside-down.
During a deployment in the summer of 2023 at the age of 24, Catana began experiencing digestive issues. Despite her initial reluctance to seek medical help, Catana decided to consult a doctor at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center after returning home with persistent symptoms. Due to Catana’s family medical history, her doctor was prompted to do a colonoscopy. The results would be life-changing.
“I walked into a room and my doctor sat me down and showed me a picture of a tumor in my colon that was about 10 centimeters in circumference,” Catana said.
Given Catana’s age and condition, her doctor recommended that she seek medical treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland. Within a week, Catana left everything in Germany behind to begin her treatment process.
“I had to leave my apartment, all my friends, and two really big projects I was excited to start at work,” Catana said. Once at Walter Reed, she underwent additional testing which revealed that she has a genetic condition called Lynch Syndrome that makes her predisposed to several different types of cancers. Catana’s medical team put together a plan that included two rounds of immunotherapy, followed by surgery, and then six months of chemotherapy.
After completing immunotherapy, a scan revealed that the tumor had grown, as opposed to shrunk. Despite the setback, Catana moved forward with her surgery. “The doctor took out my colon, part of my liver, and my gallbladder because the cancer had spread into both of those areas locally,” Catana said. “I was lucky that it wasn't metastatic and did not spread into any other parts of my body.”
After a couple of weeks, Catana received a call from her oncologist with surprising news. A pathology report following her surgery revealed that there was no cancer left in her body and the tumor growth was scar tissue around where the tumor had once been. The immunotherapy did its’ job and Catana was cancer-free. “I cried for a whole day, tears of joy!”
Today, Catana is doing well and feels immense gratitude for how quickly she was able to tackle her disease and recover. “They took out essentially, three of my organs, and I was out of the hospital within 48 hours,” Catana reflected. “The speed at which modern medicine allowed me to recover from something so traumatic was incredible.” Moving forward, Catana is staying near Walter Reed for the next three years to ensure she can continue her treatment plan.
Reflecting on when she first received the news that she was sick and would have to step away from her career to seek treatment, Catana said, “It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I am was no longer Lieutenant Cristina Catana, Readiness Flight Commander at Spangdahlem. I was now Cristina Catana, patient.”
With support from her family, friends, and the civil engineer community, Catana realized that her sickness was not the end of her career. “I quickly found out that I had the support of a lot of people around the CE enterprise that were willing to stand behind me to ensure I was able to continue furthering my career after my treatment.”
The teams that Catana has been a part of thus far in her career motivated her, checked in on her during treatment, and offered advice whenever she needed it. “CE is kind of a hidden gem of the Air Force,” Catana said. “When people say that CE is a family, I know firsthand how true that is.” For Catana, the CE community means everything and the reason she continues pushing herself in the Air Force.
Catana continues to roll with the punches at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, as the Executive Officer for the 316th Mission Support Group. She is looking forward to continuing to build her civil engineer prowess and exploring assignments in the Pacific.
| Date Taken: | 12.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.02.2024 10:19 |
| Story ID: | 486405 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 32 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cristina Catana Is Rolling With the Punches, by Diana Nesukh, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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