“Making the most out of each day”

Teresa Woolard shares her story

Teresa Woolard stood in front of her coworkers and friends and took a deep breath. With all eyes on her, she began to share the story of her son’s personal journey with a debilitating disease and the support her family has received from the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) over the years.

Teresa and Ryan’s story

She described how her direct experience with the MDA started when her son, Ryan, was diagnosed with having an unspecified congenital myopathy, also referred to as neuromuscular disorders, at two and a half years old. After undergoing an extensive physical examination, blood work, an electromyography (EMG), and muscle biopsy as a toddler, Ryan has been living with this diagnosis for the last 28 years.

As Teresa spoke, she surveyed the crowd. Teresa, a manager for Clinical MedSurg at Cook Research Incorporated (CRI), saw friends and employees from all of the West Lafayette Cook companies, including Cook Biotech, MED Institute, Cook Advanced Technologies (CAT), and CRI. She saw Gail Bates, the wife of Brian Bates, a former leader and mentor at Cook Medical who lost his battle with ALS in 2018. They had all come together at the Purdue University Kampen Golf Course to host the first ever Cook and Kampen golf outing and benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Central Indiana.

“Ryan’s muscular dystrophy, and the impact on our personal lives is not information we openly share very often, so it was not an easy story for me to share,” Teresa said. “But I felt that the benefits outweighed keeping the story private.”

“My goal was to alert those in attendance about how challenging life can be when faced with a chronic illness, about the importance of making the most out of each day, and about the support and impact that the MDA has made in our lives,” she said. “My hope is that someday, when a person is given a diagnosis of a neuromuscular disorder, the therapy and treatment plan won’t be to watch, wait, and provide support, but that we will have a cure.”

The support of the MDA

Over time, Ryan has experienced muscle weakness, which is one of the major side effects of being diagnosed with a myopathy, requiring him to use a wheelchair for mobility. Alongside this, he is aided by a ventilator 24/7 to support his breathing, as well as a pacemaker to help keep his heart in rhythm. Through these challenging times, the MDA has provided a variety of kinds of support to Teresa and her family.

The MDA has also been a reoccurring and reliable resource for the family when they have had questions about Ryan’s diagnosis and prognosis. They provide support classes about living with neuromuscular diseases and classes about caring for a loved one diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease.

The MDA has also helped Teresa and Ryan when it came to their need for having durable medical equipment, like Ryan’s wheelchair. If the wheelchair needed repairs, such as new tires if the tread was gone, the MDA provided the family with financial aid for repairs and alerted them to what equipment might be a benefit to Ryan. They also strive to keep the family aware of the research that MDA was supporting and any clinical research trials that might be able to aid Ryan.

“Ryan was able to attend the MDA youth summer camp for several years,” Teresa said. “He enjoyed his time at camp because he was away from his normal routine, able to build relationships with other campers that also were diagnosed with a muscular condition, and could enjoy the array of activities that camp provided.”

The golf outing and benefit

Overall, the outing was a big success. Over $28,000 was raised to fund vital resources for over 1,200 local families.

“The turnout was great, the weather was perfect, and the amount of money we raised exceeded our expectations,” Teresa said.

“We were excited to work with the MDA and unite the Cook West Lafayette community for a great cause,” said Neal Fearnot, president of MED Institute and Cook Advanced Technologies. “This was a great opportunity for the Cook companies in West Lafayette to serve the community through a philanthropic endeavor.”

Below are some of the photos of the participants and volunteers at the the Cook and Kampen golf outing and MDA benefit.

Additional resources

For more information about the MDA, you can visit their official website by clicking here.

For more information about Brian Bates’s life and his contributions to Cook, click here to read more.

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Written by Brooke Corcoran, the Marketing Communications manager at MED Institute.

You can click the blue text to read the previous story, Episode 3 of The Cook Podcast, and learn more about the return of the podcast and how to subscribe for future episodes, as well as listen to episode three. You can also click, Everybody wins, to learn more about some employee success stories that have come from teams working together to solve problems and embracing new opportunities.