Peterlin-Kolp MaryFran - The highest hurdle: an ALS journey of faith, laughter, love and friendship

T HE H IGHEST H URDLE

T HE H IGHEST H URDLE

An ALS Journey of Faith, Laughter,

Love and Friendship

Kim Wroblewski

2019 Kim Wroblewski

The Highest Hurdle

An ALS Journey of Faith, Laughter, Love and Friendship

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library Congress Control Number: 2018965716

ISBN 978-0-310101833 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-0-310101840 (Hardbound)

ISBN 978-0-310101857 (eBook)

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Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

I NTRODUCTION

I f you bought this book, we sincerely thank you! We hope you laugh, cry, and discover a deeper faith. Most importantly, we hope you discover that life is short and that if you are dealt a crappy hand, it does not mean you have to throw in the towel and give up. You can live a positive and happy life and make a lasting impact on others. We are not come to Jesus, in your face Christians. We are both, we think, funny, optimistic, hardworking, fantastic moms (our children will totally agree with this), and we live for our families. Our goal is to help people find treatments, diets, and to show how our wonderful support group functioned, while remaining positive in a horrible situationas well as sharing and growing through our faith, in which we have been incredibly blessed. We hope you enjoy the journey. All proceeds are going to pay for ALS medical treatments for people in the Northern Michigan area, and hopefully scholarships for some well-deserving kids!

Thank you and God bless!

MaryFran Kolp and Kim Wroblewski

C ONTENTS

M aryFran and I laughed about how we met in 1997. She was working at the local hospital, doing health screenings. I decided to go one day and have my fat calipered, as I have always struggled with my weight and prefer to be referred to as curvy. MaryFrana six-foot tall, blond, beautiful, athletic, smiling, and energetic womanhappily obliged to pinch my fat. Being very outgoing people (meaning we talk a lot), we started talking and found that not only did we have a lot in common, we lived within two miles of each other out in the country. Little did we know that this meeting would result in a long-lasting friendship, better known as sisterhood. Through the years, we would watch each others children, carpool, and volunteer together for different organizations. We also attended the same church, sent our kids to the same schools, and had very similar parenting styles. Our husbands worked together at the same hospital and also had similar interests.

The most amazing thing about MaryFran was that she was the most positive person anyone would ever meet. You instantly become her friend. It didnt matter what the situation was; she would find the silver lining. If something bad happened in your life, she would be the first one at your door with a meal, or a card would show up in your mailbox. She even took in my dog with two broken legs for a weekend so that we wouldnt lose out on tickets we had for a University of Michigan football game. The crazy thing was when we came home, he didnt want to leave her side! She had this amazing sense of humor, too. After I had my hysterectomy and had issues with my bladder, she of course was the first one to come over with food and noticed the urine in my catheter bag was quite an unusual color. She did not know I was on medication that changed the color of my urine. She said to me when she was leaving, Hey, not sure if you noticed, but your urine is a really funky color and you might want to get that checked out! Before texting, we would spend hours on the phone, sharing wisdom or talking about our children, school, etc. We tag-teamed for our church funeral lunches, which of course she told me about and talked me into doing. We were co-presidents of the Northern Michigan Medical Society Alliance and active members for years. We spent many hours together volunteering for St. Francis Xavier School and Church, and she was one of my most cherished friends. She was one of my few friends who, if I called in an emergency, she would drop whatever she was doing and just be there for me.

P etoskey is a tiny resort community nestled on the shores of Little Traverse Bay in Northern Michigan. Michiganders use their hands as a map to show where they are from; Petoskey would be at the edge of the top of your ring finger! Locals joke that you can find many unique and beautiful gifts but not a pair of underwear in our town!

Summers in Petoskey are known for million-dollar sunsets, Petoskey stones (our state stone), fudge, ice cream, art, gorgeous sandy beaches, festivals, and our Fourth of July Parade, where practically the whole town turns out and stays for our spectacular fireworks display over the bay. It is common to see people at our beachfront park biking, walking, playing softball, checking out the boats in the marina, or just napping in the grass. The kids and some brave adults will be jumping off the Petoskey lighthouse break-wall into the ice-cold, sparkling, blue Lake Michigan water to cool off on warm days. You will always see peoples backsides in the air in the familiar Petoskey stone stoop along the shoreline, searching for the elusive Petoskey stone for a keepsake to take home. If you are lucky, a local may take pity on you and show you how its done. (You should look in the water, as its easier to see the coral pattern when the stones are wet. You are welcome.) The Petoskey waterfront is so beautiful that it is often painted by local artists with St. Francis Xavier Church as a focal point. The church has been a major landmark since the late 1800s. Our towns population easily triples in the summer with the snowbirds and with our many summer tourists (snowbirds are Michiganders that leave the harsh winters for warmer climates like Florida or Arizona and come back in the late spring). Petoskey is also lucky to have many family farms, some of them organic, that bring their wares in town on Fridays to sell at our farmers market.

Fall brings spectacular colors of gold, maroon, and orange, and people come on foliage tours to see our beautiful area. The whole town turns out to watch football on Friday nights and everyone knows everyone. Our school is very fortunate to have a brand-new stadium that rivals some of the best downstate elite schools after years of hosting games in a run-down stadium that we still packed to the rafters. We cheer on the sports teams winning or losing. The marching band has been winning awards for over thirty years and the joke is when the football team has a losing season, everyone is there to watch the band at half-time. Even the opposing teams fans come over to watch our band. Our sports teams have had many successful seasons. Petoskey High School families travel for their teams and we travel far. Our teams play in towns as far away as Escanaba (in the upper peninsula), a four-hour drive; Grand Rapids, a three-hour drive; Alpena, a two-hour drive; and Traverse City, just over an hours drive. For people who dont live in Michigan, we tell how far away something is by how long it takes to drive it, not by how many miles. If your kid is on a sports team, you can be sure that if they played well, you will definitely hear about it. It is very common for them to appear in the sport section of the local paper and people will cut them out and save them for you. November 15 is considered a holiday, as it is opening day for deer-hunting season. Men and a lot of women, many with their kids, head into the woods to get the big buck; a nice one in Northern Michigan is usually eight points or more. If you get a nice one, the men are always eager to tell how many points their buck had and show you a photo of their son or daughter with their first deer.