It’s a Monday evening at the Randy L. Larson Softball Four-Plex, and Josh McAlpine is manning right field, while the Hillsborough County Special Olympics Softball team practices. Running up on any hit that comes his way, McAlpine is working on his throws to the infield as his stepfather, Dan Kolopajlo, yells in encouragement from the dugout.
To the outsider, it looks like just another practice. But this day— and every other day like it since 2012— came dangerously close to not happening.
Kolopajlo was diagnosed in August 2011 with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare heart disease. It took away his abilities to work, coach and play with his stepson. But, Josh was ready to do whatever it took to help Dan make it through. It meant sacrificing sports, his favorite things to do, for an entire year.
“Josh handled it pretty well,” Kolopajlo says. “It was upsetting, to him, but he was willing to do it.”
PRESSURES OF MOVING
Their story begins about 25 years ago, when Kolopajlo married McAlpine’s mother, Beth. The 5-year-old boy loved watching sports on television and wanted to play as soon as he possibly could. Three years later, at age 8, he became eligible for Special Olympics sports.
McAlpine, who has autism, dabbled in just about everything he could. Bowling, bocce, basketball, track and field, cycling — you name it, and he’s competed in it. And Kolopajlo, wanting to be there every step of the way, made it a point to get certified to coach every sport his stepson wanted to play. To this day, he’s certified in nine different sports in both Florida and their native state, West Virginia.
“With these Special Olympics athletes, out there, it’s the epitome of what sportsmanship is,” he says. “Volunteering is an addiction.”
Kolopajlo and McAlpine share a love of Pittsburgh sports, especially the Steelers and Pirates. Baseball is Kolopajlo’s true love. He played catcher, like his favorite player, Manny Sanguillen. And McAlpine, who wears No. 22 for Andrew McCutchen, has become quite adept at memorizing statistics and any other aspects of the game that he can.
After Kolopajlo got a job offer in 2010 in Florida, the family relocated to Plant City that September and got involved with Hillsborough County Special Olympics right away. The program had been great to the family, which helped ease the transition to Plant City where they had no other family members and knew nobody in the beginning.
That made things difficult almost a year later, when Kolopajlo couldn’t figure out why he was quickly getting exhausted.
DODGING A BULLET
“It started in April,” Kolopajlo says. “I started getting short of breath, and I had to find out why I couldn’t breathe while walking normally.”
He, his wife and his doctors spent the next several months scrambling for answers. Before then, he had shown no signs of heart disease. It seemed as though his condition just crept into his body one night, breaking and entering into his heart while he was asleep. Through the end of August, it only got worse.
“You see these squares,” Kolopajlo says, while walking along the tiled entrance path to the softball fields. “That August, I could walk maybe three of those. And then, I’d be out of breath.”
On Aug. 28, 2011, the doctors finally figured out what was wrong with him. He had contracted a heart disease called pulmonary arterial hypertension.
The disease is extremely rare — especially in Kolopajlo’s case. It hit him without warning. People like Kolopajlo do catch this disease idiopathically, without symptoms, each year. But, according to him, it’s only about 150 people.
Even more troubling were his chances to live, at first.
“The doctor said that, if I didn’t get on medicine right then, I had less than a 2% chance of living for six more months,” Kolopajlo says. “It hit us hard.”
He got on medicine at just the right time, but even that was an uphill climb. The first round of drugs disagreed with Kolopajlo’s body, giving him a harsh case of insomnia.
“I was awake for 27 hours straight, at one point,” he says.
So, doctors put him on a different drug, requiring a 24/7 intravenous infusion. That one worked better. In his first walking test, before this medicine, he was able to walk 200 feet in six minutes. Two days after the infusion, he was able to do 400 feet in that time.
There was still a long way to go, though. He had to get treatments done in Sarasota and Pittsburgh and could not work or do much physical activity.
“I couldn’t lift more than 10 pounds,” Kolopajlo says. “I couldn’t even lift a gallon of milk.”
Which is where McAlpine comes in.
TAKING IT IN STRIDE
McAlpine, who had just gotten his job at Publix that October, knew he needed to be there for Kolopajlo whenever he could.
“It was pretty hard,” McAlpine says. “I definitely missed playing sports.”
Among the sports that he had to give up was basketball — his best and favorite sport. But, McAlpine didn’t let it get to him. He took on many of the responsibilities around the house: doing the laundry and dishes, cleaning the place, getting and unloading the groceries, and anything else that was asked for him whenever he wasn’t at Publix. He made himself available at at all times.
“It was incredibly helpful,” Kolopajlo says.
To this day, McAlpine still takes care of those duties around the house. Kolopajlo, after plenty of medicine and testing, can now walk 1,500 feet in six minutes and is far more upbeat. He needs a new throwing shoulder, which could come as early as November if everything checks out, and wants nothing more than to be able to get out on the field with his stepson again.
“I just want to have a more normal range of motion,” he says. “I will work to get as close as possible. It’s frustrating to not be able to toss the ball.”
As frustrating as that may be, he’s grateful to be able to get out to the fields and watch his stepson play. And, as big a help as the medicine was, having McAlpine step up to the challenge was just as important.
“I was OK with that,” McAlpine says. “It just came naturally.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
WHAT IS PULMONARY ARTERIAL HYPERTENSION?
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, this disease is marked by increased blood pressure in one’s pulmonary arteries, which leads to shortness of breath, pain, exhaustion and a rapid heartbeat.
The pulmonary arteries are the arteries that transfer blood from the heart to the lungs. PAH makes this process incredibly difficult.
At the moment, there is no cure. It can be contained, however, and treatments can at least slow the disease’s progression.
Normally, PAH is associated with other diseases, including HIV, sickle cell disease and congenital heart disease, but idiopathic cases— like Dan Kolopajlo’s— show up unannounced.
According to the American Lung Association, PAH affects anywhere from 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1 million people.