𝗝𝗼𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗡𝗬 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿
During a short break in the 2022-23 season, Joe Micheletti traveled to Fargo, North Dakota to visit with his older brother, Jim, who was battling incurable pancreatic cancer.
Two other brothers, Tom and Andy, joined him on the trip, where they were greeted by a doctor who suggested they speak with a geneticist
She comes in with a big easel board and puts it on the table,” Joe recalled by phone last week. “She said, ‘I want to go through your family medical history.’”
Joe, Tom and Andy − three of nine Micheletti siblings who were raised in the blue-collar town of Hibbing, Minnesota − went down the list of family members who had been diagnosed with cancer over the years, beginning with their deceased mother, Mary, and sister, Jean, and extending to several aunts, uncles and cousins.The geneticist was taken aback.
She just kind of sits back in the chair and throws her hands up and says, ‘You guys have so much cancer in your family. It’s way above the norm,'” Joe remembered. “That all opens your eyes.”
Jim died a couple months later, followed by Tom the next year. A third brother, Don, was diagnosed in that hellish year-and-a-half period, leaving him in a paraplegic state.
That harsh perspective brought the idea of retirement to the forefront, with Joe deciding, “I don’t want to be somebody who dies in the (television) booth.”
