This story was written by Michael Carvell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and can be read at AJC.com:
The only visible evidence from the scariest time of his life is a scar. It is five inches long, starting above Paul Amend’s left earlobe and curling toward his face in the shape of a big question mark.
Amend, who plays football as well as two other sports at Kell High School, had a lot of questions marks about life after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor last year. Why me? How did this happen again? Am I going to live?
He had extra reasons to be scared. He was facing the second brain-related surgery of his young life. When he was barely a couple months old, doctors had to operate on his infant skull to allow more room for the brain to grow.
Now as a high school junior, Amend was visiting the same doctors’ offices, X-rays rooms and hospital but for far more serious problem. It was like he had won the lottery of all bad luck.
“The doctors couldn’t believe it and said there was only a chance in one billion … that Paul would have two brain surgeries in 17 years on things that were completely unrelated,” said his father, Dave Amend.
If the odds on such surgery was one-in-a-billion, what were they that Amend would ever play football again? Remarkably, his second journey into the operating room has a happy ending, too.
The 5-foot-9, 185-pound Amend is finishing out his senior year as a two-way starting lineman for the school’s football team. He says the surgery is a distant memory, except when he is reminded by his scar in the mirror.
“I feel great, just like I did before the surgery and before the seizures,” Amend said. “I tapered down with my seizure medications and finally got off them in August. I’m back to being me.”
A year ago, Amend’s friends first noticed the mini-seizures, the early signs of trouble. Michael Abraham, a football teammate, was in Amend’s math class.
“Paul started zoning out every once in a while and it kind of got worse in time,” Abraham said. “He looked like he was in daze for about 20 seconds. When he came to, he had lost track of time. He wasn’t sure where he was or what was going on for a few seconds. It was scary.”
Amend thought the blackouts were panic attacks, which he had experienced since the eighth grade. He didn’t think them a big deal and had no plans to mention them to his family. But word eventually got back to his parents, who immediately sought treatment for him last September.
Nearly a month later, Amend was diagnosed with oligodendroglioma. A benign tumor the size of a walnut had formed in his brain’s right frontal lobe. The family was devastated by the news, but slowly gained confidence after assurances from Dr. Roger Hudgins, chief neurosurgeon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and a familiar face.
Ironically, Hudgins was the same doctor who tended to Amend after he was born with Sagittal Synostosis, a condition that left no soft spots on his head. Hudgins oversaw the successful cranial reconstruction procedure. Now 17 years later, he was spouting words of confidence in advance of the second operation. He even gave Paul clearance to play football until the week before the surgery.
“[Hudgins] said the tumor wasn’t going to get any worse and that the worst thing that could happen was that Paul could black out during a play and get pancaked,” Dave Amend said. “As parents, we knew Paul wanted to play football more than anything else. We thought it would’ve been tougher for him to sit on the sidelines.
“We gave it our OK for Paul to play, but Mom and Dad were very nervous. We hung on every play.”
Amend went on to play a couple of his best games. Kell advanced to the Class AAAAA playoffs before losing to Harrison in the first round. Amend checked into the hospital the following Monday for surgery.
His recovery was stunning. He returned in time to compete on the school’s wrestling and lacrosse teams, as well as participate in spring football practice.
Kell got off to a slow start this year, losing its first four games, but not for a lack of effort from Amend. He starts at left offensive guard and defensive tackle, inspiring teammates with both his medical history and scrappy style of play.
“A lot of the players look up to Paul … if he can do all these things after everything he has been through, then there is no reason we can’t do it, too,” Abraham said.
Kell coach Derek Cook speaks of Amend’s journey in glowing terms. But then again, the undersized lineman with the oversized heart had won over his coach long before the brain surgery.
“If you could somehow stretch him into 6-2 or 6-5, he would be a Div. I All-American … and he’d go to the NFL,” Cook said. “He’s everything you’d want in a football player. He’s not a big guy, but he’s an amazing little guy. He mixes it up with lineman twice his size and holds his own.”
Amend’s scar is hidden now beneath his brown hair, but he can see it after stepping out of the shower. He views it as sort of a battle scar.
“I can’t tell you why all of this happened, but I feel blessed,” he said.
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