After Testicular Cancer, He Established a Community to Heal through Fitness

Dan Korte found out he had testicular cancer in 2008. The diagnosis, he said, changed his life forever and led him down a dark path in life. 

His introduction to testicular cancer actually began in 7th grade during the required physical before joining the football team. She found a varicocele on one of his testicles and recommended that he see a specialist. He did, and each year, Dan had an annual scan to manage this diagnosis until around age 19 in 2008. 

In this episode of Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer, Dan shares details about his testicular cancer diagnosis and treatment, including the path of drinking and partying he traveled for a few years.

Dan had the idea in 2012 to establish a community, including an apparel company, for people who have gone through struggles and challenges in life. In 2017, this idea became a reality after a coffee shop conversation with a woman he met who changed his life. 

He established Riseabove, a community where individuals who have experienced or are going through challenging situations in life can recover through fitness and nutrition. 

As noted on the company's website, "At Riseabove, we redefine fitness apparel by celebrating resilience and personal transformation. Life's challenges leave scars, but those scars are proof of strength, courage, and growth. Whether you're overcoming struggles like weight loss, mental health challenges, or personal setbacks, our mission is to empower your fitness journey, foster belonging in a supportive community, and inspire pride in rising above adversity."

Learn more about the Riseabove apparel and community. 

Enjoy this podcast from the Max Mallory Foundation. 

Transcript

After Testicular Cancer, He Established a Community to Heal through Fitness

[00:00:00] 

Introduction: Welcome to Don't Give Up On Testicular Cancer, a podcast where testicular cancer survivors, caregivers, and others who have navigated the cancer journey share their stories. The podcast comes to you from the Max Mallory Foundation, a non-profit family foundation focused on educating about testicular cancer in honor and in memory of Max Mallory, who died in 2016, at the young age of 22, from testicular cancer, had he survived. Max wanted to help young adults with cancer. This podcast helps meet that goal. Here now is your host, Joyce Lofstrom, Max's mom, and a young adult cancer [00:01:00] survivor.

Joyce Lofstrom: Hi, this is Joyce, and with me today is Dan Korte, and he found out he had testicular cancer in 2008. A diagnosis that he said changed his life forever and led him down a very dark path in life.

In 2012, he had the idea to establish Riseabove Apparel for people who have gone through struggles and challenges in life, which he will tell us about on our podcast today. Then, in 2017, this idea became a reality after a coffee shop conversation with a woman he met who changed his life. Dan is here to tell us more about his testicular cancer and the company Riseabove Apparel.

So, Dan, thanks for being here. 

Dan Korte: Thanks for having me, Joyce. Looking forward to it. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Yeah, me too. Well, tell us first a little bit about your company. I've been looking at the website Riseabove Apparel. I love your purpose, which is to create a community where individuals who have experienced or are going through difficult situations in life can recover through fitness and nutrition.

Joyce Lofstrom: So tell us about that. 

Dan Korte: Yeah, so we wanted to create an athletic apparel company that had a little bit more than just branding that was targeted towards image. Usually, every brand nowadays, when you look at it, it's all about its image and how it looks, how it feels. While that's also important, we want it to focus on stories.

Dan Korte: For me, in my situation, like you said, I'm a cancer survivor, but everyone has struggles, whether it's postpartum mental health. Cancer, you, you name it. That's kind of the idea behind the brand: we wanted to focus on people going through struggles and overcoming them through fitness or nutrition.

Joyce Lofstrom: That's great, so I know that you learned about testicular cancer in seventh grade. Can you tell us about what happened? 

Dan Korte: Yeah, so it's, crazy story, but. I played sports my entire life, and I was trying out for the seventh-grade football team, and I'm going in for my physical to 00:03:00 make the team.

Dan Korte: And when I was meeting with the pediatrician, she had noticed that I had a varicocele on the left side of my testicle. And I had no idea what a varicocele was. And they had explained it to me, and she had recommended that we go and see a specialist, to get his opinion.

Dan Korte: So we went to this specialist, and he did his routine and diagnosis, and I ended up having an ultrasound with him. And we got the results back, and we sat down with him and my parents. And, the diagnosis he recommended was that I have surgery to fix the varicocele.

Dan Korte: And, immediately, I'm like, wow, I'm in seventh grade. I'm like 12 years old. I'm going to have surgery. He had explained some of the reasons why he wanted me to have surgery and the effect that the varicocele would have if you leave it. Untreated for so long, it could potentially restrict the blood flow.

Joyce Lofstrom: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Korte: to one of the testicles. So his idea was that, hey, let's be preventative and [00:04:00] fix it so it doesn't damage one of your testicles. He's like, you might not be able to have kids, blah, blah, blah. So my mom was very concerned, because, being a mother, she wanted to have grandkids.

Dan Korte: My father on this was more analytical and data-driven. So he was like, ”Well, how do the results look? How did the ultrasound come back? “

And the doctor came back and said, “Hey, everything looks good. Everything checks out. We have no issues or concerns.” 

Dan Korte: He's like, “Why can't we just watch it instead of having surgery?”

The doctor said, “You can definitely watch it.” He recommended coming back for yearly ultrasounds to get a checkup. So that's what we did.

Dan Korte: We just kept going in for these routine physicals, routine ultrasounds, and watching the varicocele to see if anything changes. And, as the years progressed, I'm coming up to 18, 19 years old. Going in for a routine checkup, and the ultrasound results come back that I have 00:05:00 a small mass on the side of my left testicle.

Dan Korte: They weren't initially concerned in the beginning because they're like, “Hey, sometimes you have cysts. Sometimes these go away. Come back in three months and we'll check it out again.”

So I came back in three months, and sure enough, it got bigger.

Dan Korte: They said, “Hey, just to rule, just to rule it out, back again in another three months.”

And so we did another three months, came back, did the ultrasound, and it got even bigger. So their recommendation was, let's do a biopsy. We scheduled the biopsy, and the way it worked with my parents' insurance, in order to meet the deductible, we had to get it in before year-end.

Dan Korte: So I ended up going in for surgery on December 31, 2008, right? So yeah. New Year's Eve, right? I remember being wheeled, wheeled into the surgery room, and ice cold freezing, and I'm kind of like freaking out because there are lights everywhere.

Dan Korte: I'm like, what's going on? They [00:06:00] put the anesthesia on you, and they count, count back, from 10 to one. And I was like ten, nine, and I was out, and I don't remember anything. And then, waking up after surgery. The first thing I asked was, “Hey, did they take it?”

Dan Korte: And my mom, she told me, she's like, “Yeah, you know, they took it.”

And immediately, I was filled with anger. I was so angry. I was so upset. I grew up in a Catholic household, right? I prayed, I prayed every night, since I was in seventh grade, God, please, please don't take it. Please protect me. 

They had taken it, I felt like God betrayed me, right? Yeah. So I immediately kind of just resented him. Why'd you do this? Fell into this victim mindset, blaming him, blaming everyone. And then after that, I just kind of spiraled into this dark, this dark path where I was just drinking and partying and just miserable to be around.

Dan Korte: I was in a victim mindset, blaming all my problems on everyone else. [00:07:00] And then I ended up meeting a girl. And she kind of helped me a little bit and got back on track in life and fell in love. We dated for about almost six years proposed, got engaged,, wedding planned, and then, she called it off and ended it, right?

I was devastated again—right. I hit rock bottom for the second time. I told myself that at this moment in life, I was not going to fall down the victim path. I was going to choose the path of growth—the path of investing in me and figuring life out.

Dan Korte: Right? It was a couple of years later that I met another girl, who's my now wife, right? I was telling her my story and how I wanted to start basically a nonprofit, testicular cancer foundation, similar to what Lance Armstrong did with Livestrong, right?

I was kind of hesitant because he was going through that whole doping phase. Right. I don't know if I really want to do that right now, and I kind of want to find an apparel company or a community that I can belong to [00:08:00].

I was kind of telling her about it. She was like, “Well, why don't you just build it? Why don't you just create it?” That's what I did. She kind of helped push me to start the company. Yeah. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Wow. So I just have a quick question on that. You didn't have to have chemo or any kind of treatment after your surgery, so did they just remove your testicle?

Dan Korte: That's correct, yeah. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Okay. Wow. Good. Yeah, yeah. 

Dan Korte: Yeah. And then, you know, after that, their recommendation was to go and see a specialist. We went to the U of M, the University of Michigan, and we saw a specialist on testicular cancer and shared all the results and all the data.

His recommendation was, the next path for the cancer is to travel to the lymph nodes in the stomach. So his recommendation was, “Hey, let's have the lymph nodes removed from your stomach. Let's have surgery.”

I'm like, holy cow. I just had surgery, and now you want me to have surgery again.

Dan Korte: And he's like, “To be honest, it's the safest thing, it's the [00:09:00] next path for the cancer.” He's like, “You probably won't be able to have kids. You'll probably never be able to have an erection ever again.”

 So I'm like. I'm like 19. Oh, like freaking out.

Dan Korte: Right. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not going to have kids. I'm like, just trying to process everything. Right? Yeah. Thank God, they recommended going to get a second opinion. Right. So we went to a second guy. He was my hematologist oncologist.

We shared all the data with him, and he drew my blood. We did the ultrasound, and all my markers and data were checked out. He said, "I don't recommend you having your lymph nodes removed. He said, "Let's just monitor it. Let's just get your cat scans, ultrasounds, and blood work, and let's just monitor it.”

Dan Korte: That's what we did. We monitored it for, I don't know, three or four years. One day, I'm watching the news, right? I see my doctor on the news. He's being raided by the FBI, and I'm like, oh my God, what's going on? Right? We find out that he got involved in Medicare, Medicaid fraud—just over-billing, overcharging, and misdiagnosing patients with cancer. Right. He went to jail, right? I think he's facing 45 years. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Oh, Dan. Oh God. 

Dan Korte: Yeah. It's a wild, wild story. There were people who didn't even have cancer that he diagnosed with cancer, and I think even some people ended up dying.

Dan Korte: Right. He got caught up in the greed for money. Right. He, he was only concerned about money.  

Joyce Lofstrom: Wow. I'm glad you got that second opinion, because I have never, if it's not there, don't take it out. 

Dan Korte: Yeah, exactly right. Ironically, the second opinion was the doctor who went to jail. Right. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Okay. 

Dan Korte: Yeah. He wasn't the one who diagnosed me with cancer. Okay. We didn't have Medicare or Medicaid. Right. I think we weren't kind of subject to that.

Dan Korte: Right. That prey. Right. It's just crazy how it all works out. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Well, I'm glad it did. That would've been a [00:11:00] brutal surgery just to have, in case.

Joyce Lofstrom: I'm interested in Riseabove because I've looked at the items you offer. Can you talk a little bit about some of the people you've reached and how you came up with the certain things that you have that people can buy? It's pretty comprehensive. 

Dan Korte: So our symbol is a Phoenix. Right. And I felt that the Phoenix kind of is, is symbolic for everything we go through, right? We kind of go through these rock bottom moments in life, and we come out, we're reborn, we come out a different person.

I felt the Phoenix was a great symbol for the company. The name Riseabove represents overcoming hardships and struggles. It was one of those shower moments where I was just in the shower and thinking, and the name just popped into my mind.

We have anything, from hats, hoodies, zip-ups, shirts, shorts, you name it. Okay. Your typical apparel brand, right? We've [00:12:00] touched a lot of people, and the most recent was probably the hardest one. I met a family at one of the events this summer.

Dan Korte: Their daughter was battling stage four cancer. Mm-hmm. She came in, and they shared her story. Amazing family. Wonderful, wonderful to be around, and such a joy to have met them. Her mom had messaged me, about a month after we met, to let me know that she had passed away.

So that was one of the first moments in life where it actually hit me hard, you know? I was like, Wow, I literally met this girl and she was battling cancer, they were talking about how, you know, she was very inspired by the brand, and it was the first time in a long time that, you know, she felt inspired and motivated.

And then just to hear that, she passed away. It was really heartbreaking for me. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Yeah, that's hard. Yeah. Do you have events with your company? 

Dan Korte: Yeah, we do a lot of pop-up events throughout, okay. So, a lot like we do farmer's markets, Christmas markets, holiday markets, things like that.

Joyce Lofstrom: Yeah, okay. [00:13:00] Can you give us a URL or tell us how people can find your company and your apparel? 

Dan Korte: Yeah, our website is riseabove.org, O-R-G. That's the best place you can find us. And all of our social media links are, are at the bottom. So we're on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. You name it, we're on everything.

Joyce Lofstrom: Okay. Alright, so what's next for you? Anything you want to share? Personally, career, the company. 

Dan Korte: Yeah. So, next, for me and the brand, I want to get into more podcasting, kind of like how we're doing right now, and I want to start a podcast and start inviting guests on who have been through these hardships, tragedies, or struggles in life, and just have one-on-one conversations with them. I want to get them to share their story and provide inspiration or motivation to our audience. There are people who don't like to share their stories, but they're going through something, and maybe these podcasts could help them.. 

Dan Korte: I kind of have this long-term vision too. So on top of the podcasting, I want to have my own gym eventually [00:14:00] one day, like a local gym. 

In addition to that, I'd like to have some coaches on the brand as well. They could specialize in cancer, mental health, or postpartum, right?

Dan Korte: You could hire these coaches for one-on-one coaching if you're struggling. Or, we could do group sessions, something like that. 

Joyce Lofstrom: That's great. I like that. Yeah, the gym would be good. 

Dan Korte: So, have that local impact and maybe partner with some local schools, because nowadays you see a lot of the youth, mental health, and anxiety and depression. Right. It's really, really prevalent in the youth, especially nowadays with, the surge in social media and, and bullying, online bullying. Right. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Yes, the bullying. I just want to applaud you for all that you've got going with this.

I think it sounds great, and your podcast would be wonderful because you touched so many different kinds of people who are struggling. I think you could have a broad audience who would want to hear from you and from them. 

Dan Korte: Absolutely. 

Joyce Lofstrom: So my last [00:15:00] question is, what song, when you hear it, do you have to sing along? 

Dan Korte: Oh man. My daughter is obsessed with KPop Demon Hunters, a really popular movie on Netflix. I'm sure a lot of people are going to know. She always wants to listen to the songs.

Dan Korte: I'm usually dancing with my daughter. When the songs come on. 

Joyce Lofstrom: That's good. All right. I think parents always have that kind of memory or experience with their kids. My son loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We watched a lot of that and those songs, so.

Dan Korte: That was my favorite when I was growing up, too. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Was it? Yeah. I like them too. You know, we even had the cookie jar, so I mean, we're right there, so. 

Dan Korte: Yep. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Well, I hope you can come back maybe down the road, like in a year or more, and  update us on what's going on 

Dan Korte: I'd love to.

Dan Korte: Okay. That'd be great. 

Joyce Lofstrom: Okay. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Dan. I really appreciate it. 

Dan Korte: Thanks. Thanks for having me on, Joyce. 

Closing: Thank you for watching this episode of [00:16:00] Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to our program on your favorite podcast directory. You can also visit the Max Mallory Foundation at www.maxmalloryfoundation.com/podcast to listen to previous podcast episodes or donate to the foundation.

Join us again next time for another episode of Don’t Give Up on Testicular Cancer.