After beating bladder cancer, Minnesota basketball legend Joel McDonald now faces lung cancer
MINNEAPOLIS — The year was 1991, and Chisholm High School's Joel McDonald was on top of the world, setting the state's all-time record for points scored.
"Successful teams are successful because of a lot of different reasons. But one of which from back in those days was definitely that we were playing with very good friends," McDonald said.
He would lead his team to St. Paul and a state title, followed by a successful college career at St Cloud State.
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Then he would follow his father Bob McDonald, the state's all-time winningest coach, into that family profession.
"I kind of realized the writing was on the wall for the coaching route," he said.
As his career was winding down a few years ago, he got unexpected news.
"I was diagnosed with bladder cancer, had a pretty major surgery down at the Mayo [Clinic in Rochester] to create a new bladder out of a piece of my small intestine, and that went really well," he said.
The surgery was successful, but what happened next surprised him more: he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
"We had the biopsy done and found out within a week or so that it was malignant, and that wasn't really the news anybody was expecting," he said.
Friday night was the Shining Bright Gala in Minneapolis, put on by A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation.
"In Minnesota, of everybody that's eligible to be screened, only 8% of people have been screened here," said Nancy Torrison, executive director of A Breath of Hope. "Seventy-four percent of lung cancer diagnoses happen in stage 3 or 4."
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McDonald's life is about checkups and the mystery of the disease. It is in waiting rooms with similar patients that he finds comfort.
"Like all of those people that shared the waiting room at the Mayo with me, they're all in this, we're all in this together," McDonald said. "It has you take a little bit of an inventory, to be honest with you, and feel fortunate for the opportunities you have, and the will to fight even though I know nothing about any of these people sharing a waiting room with me, the will to fight that they obviously all have is what's inspiring to say the least."
He is motivated by his wife and two children, and he is aware that your fight has teammates, and that matters a lot.
"You're not alone in the fight, and don't be afraid to talk to people that you want to talk to, and use those people to help in your positivity," he said.
