Going the Extra Mile
Pinecrest resident Nicole Friedland, B.S. ’93, prefers being called Nicki, but her sobriquet could just as easily be Marathon Mom.
The mother of two sons, Zachary, 9, and Gabriel, 7, Friedland works out seven days a week at the Patti and Allan Herbert Wellness Center on the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus. She also ran the New York Marathon in 1996.
Friedland’s nonstop lifestyle belies the fact that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) two years ago. The disease has prompted her exercise-buff husband, Jon Friedland, J.D. ’94, to raise money against multiple sclerosis when he competes in triathlons.
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| Alumni Jon and Nicki Friedland have harnessed their athletic energies to help raise support for multidisciplinary research and care at the Miller School’s MS (multiple sclerosis) Center. |
One morning two years ago, she awoke to numbness from her toes to her navel. A trip to an emergency room led to a five-hour MRI examination. “They noticed something on my brain and immediately diagnosed me with MS,” says Friedland, who earned a communications degree from UM. “I was thinking I had a brain tumor and all kinds of horrible things, but MS was not even on my radar.”
Once she received her diagnosis, however, Friedland’s attitude immediately became, in her words, “Now that I know what I have, let’s move on and deal with it.”
Jon Friedland, an attorney who’s been competing in triathlons for 15 years, responded by focusing on fundraising.
“Nicki and I initially gave $5,000 to the (Miller School’s) MS Center,” says Jon Friedland, who competes regularly
in the Ironman Triathlon, a series of
races in which competitors have from 7 a.m. until midnight to swim 2.4 miles, bicycle 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles.
A financial sponsor linked to the races allows athletes to raise money for charity, enabling Friedland to generate an additional $20,000 for the MS Center last year.
“The University of Miami is like our family,” says Jon Friedland, who met his wife on the Coral Gables campus. “Now that we’re able to give back, there was no doubt in our minds about doing this.”
The Friedlands’ gifts will have a lasting impact, according to Janice Maldonado, M.D., of the Miller School’s Department of Neurology. “What Jon and Nicki Friedland are doing has helped build awareness of the multidisciplinary strengths of the MS program at the University of Miami,” says Maldonado, who is in the department’s multiple sclerosis/neuroimmunology division.
“We are so grateful,” adds Maldonado, a sentiment shared by colleague Silvia Delgado, M.D.
While Maldonado and Delgado battle MS in research and clinical settings, Nicki Friedland controls it with a drug called Copaxone. “It’s supposed to stop the progression of the disease,” she says. “It’s just part of my routine.
“I’m so lucky—I say this every day,” she adds. “I’m able to do everything I want to do.” |
