At age 50, Linda Katen was having abdominal pain and feared she was having an attack of appendicitis. She went to Beebe Medical Center Emergency Department and learned that her hunch was correct. However, the emergency diagnosis also showed stage III colon cancer. The tumor had pushed against her appendix and caused it to burst. Within a few hours of her arrival, a surgeon removed the affected colon and cancerous tissue as well as the appendix.

“Thank God my appendix ruptured,” she says. A year later a colonoscopy showed her to be cancer free.

Ms. Katen, referring to herself as a “D.C. transplant,” lives near Camp Barnes and loves to fish. “I take my boat and anchor up at the ‘outer wall’ or the ‘haystacks,’” she says, adding that she also likes to fish at the Indian River Inlet and at the Fenwick shoals. “And fish love country music, just like me.”

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