Sports

OLSH Bowler Beats The Odds

(KDKA) Joe DuBois is just barely an adult at 18, but he has been through more in his life than most of us could think about.

It's senior day for the Our Lady of Sacred Heart High School Bowling Team. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, but one member of the team is garnering a little extra attention.

Joe is a senior on the Sacred Heart team and also is a two-time cancer survivor. At age 3, Joe was diagnosed with Leukemia.

"You just, you feel like you got hit by a truck," Christine DuBois, Joe's mom, said.

Joe's dad had the same feelings.

"One cancer, that was enough, you never prepare for anything else," he said.

But even after four years of treatment, his ordeal wasn't done. At age 11, Joe was diagnosed again with cancer.

"This one scared the heck out of me because I didn't know what it was," Joe said. 

He had Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, on one of the two bones in his right forearm.

"They took out the ulna, which had the tumor on it, and reconnected the radius to the elbow," Joe said.

And once again, Joe beat the disease, though this time he was left physically altered and on doctor's orders, Joe was unable to play any kind of contact sports.

So, he considered bowling, but there was one problem. Joe is right-handed and even with a brace on his right arm, he still couldn't roll a ball using his right arm. So he had to go back and learn how to bowl again, using his left arm.

"He had never been part of a team," Coach Bob Brasco said. "And I was just so excited to have him as part of a team but he could hardly pick up the ball up and you need both arms really for balance and the throw and .. but he's done it."

"Mr. Brasco asked me if I wanted to try it out cause I wasn't allowed to do any really sports ... so I ended up trying it out," Joe said. "I do it for fun mainly, not for the sport. It's really fun though."

Joe's parents could not be happier about their son's life and accomplishments.

"We have today, and when he was three and a half they told us we might not have tomorrow, so, he's 18. So to me that says it all," his mother said.

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