Despite rare blood disease, undefeated Joe Ellenberger set for long-awaited MMA retur

by Steven Marrocco on May 16, 2011 at 8:40 pm ET
mma junkie
Joe Ellenberger is just five days from his next fight, he is nearly two years from his most recent one, and he is two hours away from his home in Omaha, Neb.

It's taken him time to get everywhere he needed to be. But at least he's moving forward again.

The 26-year-old Ellenberger (10-0), the twin brother of UFC fighter Jake Ellenberger, is on the freeway and has "windshield time" to reflect on his journey back to the cage after a rare blood disease threatened to end not only his career, but possibly his life.

He's just come from his hematologist and a transfusion of medicine that keeps the disease, paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (or PNH), at bay.

Every two weeks, he must travel to the town of his alma mater in Kearney, Neb., for treatments. His blood is drawn to check levels of his white and red blood cells. Then he gets hooked up to an IV, and a solution of saline and Soliris – a drug shown to be effective for many patients – flows into his veins. At first, the treatment was new, and he thought about it. Now, it's routine, and he mostly surfs the Internet in the 40 minutes a treatment takes.

On Saturday, he fights Jeff Carstens at "Disorderly Conduct presents The Return" in Omaha. After two years of waiting and uncertainty, he's going to do what he loves to do, and the weekend can't come quickly enough.

"It's finally a light at the end of the tunnel," Ellenberger told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

Ellenberger has watched his fraternal twin brother rise quickly to prominence in the UFC's welterweight ranks. For much of it, his own future remained unknown. This past November, he started training on a regular basis and found that the transfusions helped him endure the intensity of hard sessions.

There were times when he doubted whether he would ever return, but he kept those thoughts on the backburner as much as possible. He reasoned that if he survived in the gym, where he and his brother relentlessly competed, that had to mean he was on the verge of something.

"In my mind, I always thought I wouldn't even be living life if I wasn't training and competing and doing the things I love," he said. "I always knew I'd be able to make a comeback, but it actually happening is much more exciting than you can prepare yourself for."

He is close to weight for Saturday's fight and said he's in good shape. He could be bummed out about all the time he's spent on the sidelines, but it only takes a trip to Kearney to remind him that he's one of the lucky ones.

"I get my treatments at an oncology place, and just to go in there, it's pretty humbling to see that 30-year-old mother of three getting treatment for breast cancer," Ellenberger said. "Looking at that, it could be way worse. In my mind, I've got to look at everything in the positive light."

If anything, the time away from active competition has given him the opportunity to watch and learn from the experience of others. Not surprisingly, he's drawn several lessons from his twin brother.

"It helps me, more than anything, to see where I needed my improvements without actually having to fight and take a loss, or take an injury," Ellenberger said. "I got to step back and really see what we control and what we could adapt."

The attention has been off him for quite some time, but that's not the part of the fight game he's looking forward to when he steps into the cage. Instead, it's doing what he loves.

"On Saturday night, the limelight will be on me," he said. "But I see it as more me and my team and the people that surround me. It's not just a culmination of what I've done, by any means, but what everybody has been able to build and be a part of."