Your One Stop Cancer Killing Spot
Welcome to the website where Joel Karate Kicks Cancer. (Preferably in the face, but really, any location will do.) We’re sad that bogus health stuff brought you this way, but we’re so happy and grateful you’re here, and for all of your love and support.
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The short of the long is that Joel has cancer, and it is decidedly not awesome. For you detail lovers out there – Joel was diagnosed with triple positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) on March 26th, 2019. Since diagnosis in early spring, Joel has been through 5 different chemo regimens to varying degrees of success, but nothing has worked very well for very long.
He and his doctors are currently working to find a viable long-term solution to karate kicking the cancer for good, which will likely include some pretty cutting edge, futuristic genetic manipulation stuff called CAR T cell therapy.
Obviously, it goes without saying that cancer is not an easy, pleasant or cheap thing to figure out, but we’ve been blessed with an amazing network of supportive friends, family and general well-wishers to help us land some of these karate kicks and keep our balance.
To help organize the flood of information coming at us and coming at you, this website lays out some of what you might be looking for to follow Joel in this most un-excellent adventure. Whether it’s finding more information on his health story, following an update website noting milestones & all the Hot Goss, learning ways to contribute financially & help spread the word, or to absorb and reciprocate some love and solid chill vibes — you’ll find it all here.
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More of the down and dirty details can be found on the various tabs of this site. Feel free to kick off your shoes, take a look around and stay awhile. As you probably know, the Joel abides.
We can’t tell you enough how much your support means to us, and we look forward to reaching black belt karate kick status here with you.
So much peace, love and gratitude,
Joel and Alli
Karate Kicking Lore
In 2002, Joel was diagnosed with advanced stages of granulomatosis with polyangitis (aka GPA; formerly known as Wegener’s granulomatosis), a rare autoimmune disorder that mainly attacked his lungs, joints & kidneys. It took doctors a full year to get the GPA under control and into remission (if only they could have helped with his school GPA too...). During that time the doctors warned him that, at some point, his kidney’s would fail due to the damage sustained by GPA and he would need a kidney transplant.
By 2012, Joel was busy both graduating college and going into end stage renal disease (ESRD), and began the complicated and painful process of peritoneal and hemodialysis while relocating from Portland to Minneapolis to hunker down with family and undergo a kidney transplant at the University of Minnesota Fairview.
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Fast forward 6 years. Joel’s healed and is generally thriving. He met his wonderful future fiancé Alli and they make the big move out to Washington, DC. In late January 2019 Joel felt the first tickles of pain that would be confirmed in March as Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL).
Since then, Joel has received 5 different rounds of chemo, to varying degrees of success. His initial treatment plan included a bone marrow transplant, but Joel was ruled ineligible for that procedure after doctors were unable to tame down his aggressive lymphoma with chemotherapy. The new plan of action involves CAR T cell therapy, a cutting edge technology involving genetic manipulation, at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX.
