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Buice Family Needs Your Help!

Dear friends and family,

Thank you (in advance) for taking a moment out of your life to read this. Sincerely. ..

You may not know this but my husband, Jeffrey and I have actually known each other since we were 13. We grew up in the same neighborhood and attended the same Junior High together. He played violin and I played the flute in the same band. We rollerskated together. Little did I know, this boy had a crush…on me. I was oblivious, just a shy girl who took ballet and played the flute. We were good friends. He made me smile.

Fast forward 30 years. In June of 2011, we reconnected. We developed a long distance fondness. He was in CA, I was in TN.  This time, the crush grew into a love. So much so that he took a one-way ticket for my heart. He arrived by plane almost 6 years to this day. He was broken, though he walked tall with a cane. He was not going to blow this opportunity like he did back in 7th grade when he claims he just couldn’t muster the nerve to profess his love for me at my 13th birthday party. On November 3rd, 2011, we were married.

 I said that I would heal him as best as I knew how, that I would hold his hand… and never let go. He said that he would be the protector of our family. We have indeed kept our promises to each other.

He told me of his 2006 diagnosis of Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis that would alter the path of his life forever. That before his diagnosis, he was a prolific creative director, designer, film maker, niche-market brand strategist… He rebranded Airwalk, worked with many successful brands like Vision Street Wear, Sims Snowboards and Coors beer. He’s had articles written about his risky yet lucrative decisions as a marketing visionary. But as he began to feel tingling in his arms and legs, his ability to walk without the assistance of a cane soon disappeared. He saw multiple neurologists, had a million tests… Big Pharma was thrown at him in record fashion. Daily injections that he had to teach his then 7yr old daughter to administer, costly infusions, chemotherapy drugs, barely-approved medications and clinical trials. He wanted ANYTHING to work. Nothing did. All of this caused a further decline in his condition. His paralysis worsened. His spasms intensified. His spirit faded, yet his faith strengthened. The future of this diagnosis is incredibly scary. There had to be a better way to handle this. I didn’t know much about MS so I immersed myself in research.  I learned that it is a chronic illness that is very unpredictable and different for each person. 

It was no accident that we found each other. The timing was eerily correct. I was a single mom with 3 young children. He was a single father to a 12 yr old daughter. We knew that somehow this union was absolutely meant to be and that somehow the stars were aligned. From the very first week of his arrival to me in Memphis, TN, I introduced food medicine as a way to help manage his MS symptoms. I was already helping him get rid of the toxins of damaging pain-managing pharmaceuticals. Reading that a vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free, raw fruit/vegetable diet helps ease spasticity and attacks, we immediately put this into action. He lost over 120 lbs over the course of the next year because of the homeopathic approach that we developed together. This was a huge step in the right direction.  We were onto something, yet we had so much more to learn.

Gradually his mobility could no longer sustain a cane. He graduated to a wheelchair and is now in a motorized chair. He made a difficult choice to walk away from his career to further understand and cope with this life-altering diagnosis. It affected him not just physically but emotionally. I continued to hold his hand and we have spent the last 6 years trying to rehabilitate this awful disease. Helping him overcome severe nausea, crippling full body muscular spasms and atrophy, severe nerve pain, brain fog and vertigo has been extremely challenging to say the least. Some days are better than others. The Summer heat and humidity here in TN also causes massive complications with his MS (swelling, joint pain and seizing).

Holding onto our faith along with the immeasurable strength of our parents in CA and HI yet enduring life in Tennessee where we have no other family has been extremely difficult. We've held hope close to our hearts that we will find that place where our whole family will flourish and where he will get the medical help that he needs to overcome this illness.

We did find our church family here, last November. Jeffrey has always maintained his Presbyterian faith that his loving parents raised him with. He doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve. When we happened upon Germantown Presbyterian Church, that was an answered prayer. The congregation accepted our family with open arms. Our children loved going to church and became involved with the youth programs there. Our oldest son even had the chance to be a volunteer counselor at a summer camp for special needs young adults. So many wonderful opportunities. Our Pastor, Susie Wiggins, began a series on Wednesday evenings that addressed various topics  of discussion to bring the community together and one week’s topic was about knowing someone with a chronic illness. Our Pastor then asked Jeffrey to speak about his diagnosis of MS in front of our congregation one Wednesday evening. He ended up meeting another church member with MS and they were able to present together. Being vulnerable in front of an audience and speaking about your life-changing illness can be very challenging and yet so liberating. One thing that our Pastor kept noticing was that Jeffrey kept speaking about himself in past tense. He would say, “I used to be a creative director, a designer, a niche-market strategist….” “I WAS this, I WAS that….” 

So, Pastor Susie said, “Jeffrey, you still ARE all of those things.” This affected him deeply and he became seriously introspective and realized that he actually still IS.
 
There was a deep and ugly fear in him of others’ acceptance (or lack thereof) of his disability. This is a guy who, for over 30 years, has been able to constantly work behind the scenes, travel the world to work in some of the finest locations, rub elbows with the A-list of Hollywood, Action Sports, Musicians, Global Activists and Underground Artists. And I’ve learned that many of the very same people that he looks up to, actually look up to him as well. 

He has spent the past 6 years trying to understand and manage his progressing diagnosis while dedicating to being a wonderful father to our children while devoting his talents to rebrand and market our businesses (The Apothecary Fairy and recently launched Enevoldsen Ltd.) Though, he had shut the door on his past. Completely. Until that night that he spoke at our church.  We prayed. We centered and focused on our future. He finally reconnected with his professional past in Colorado where he lived and worked for 15+ years.  He reached out to some of his trusted colleagues after all these years in retreat and they welcomed him back, much to his surprise, with open arms. He didn’t realize how much he was deeply missed. What a welcome blessing. 

We've made the decision to move to Colorado. It's where we need to be for him to have family support and proper medical care.  With his original team of diagnosing neurologists based there, and where the headquarters of the National MS Society resides, there is a plethora of therapy options for MS patients that steer away from pharmaceuticals.
Alternative therapies for MS such as HSCT (Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation) exist in Colorado. The expense for this procedure can fall anywhere from $50K and upwards. Our move will provide us with much better access to more organic foods and MS-specific lectures/symposiums, alternative medicines, massage, yoga/pilates, acupuncture, reflexology, physical therapy and all types of support groups. This all makes so much sense to us. We need to be in Colorado. Skyler Rain, my stepdaughter is very close with her dad. She's a college student in Denver and cannot wait to have us near. She plans to help care for her dad and be closer to her siblings. This is a huge opportunity for everyone in our family.

We are leaving soon for CO . We are very much in need of financial assistance to cover the overwhelming cost of this move: Moving cross-country to a new state with a family of 5 is not easy with having to set up a new place to live and all of its financial burdens. We need to purchase equipment to install in our bathroom and shower area to accommodate his physical impairments, mobility equipment including specialized ramps and a stair chair that will enable my husband to travel up and down stairs, having a hand brake installed in our car so that he will be able to drive again. The medical costs for his neurologists at CSU and most of all, the greatest gift… to put his MS in remission and give him the chance to walk. 


We are asking for YOUR HELP to get our family to Colorado. To move forward with the next chapter of our lives...To put wind beneath our wings so that I can help my best friend have a chance at the life he’s always wished for. He has certainly given our family his heart. Now I want to give him the world.

He has put his life on hold for way too long and sacrificed so much for so many years to help me with mine and that of our children. He has showed me what it’s like to have faith in complete darkness, how to love others even when they throw spears and how to NEVER give up in the face of adversity.

He wants to get back to doing what he does best. Being an artist, a designer and working with compassionate people who accept him even with his disability.

Accommodating and overcoming a disability is expensive.

Please consider helping our family raise $20K by August 31st, 2017 for the above mentioned costs. We are so very thankful for anything that you are able to contribute. Please know that you are tremendously helping improve the life of the very man who has given me a rebirth on my own life and that of our children.

Thank you and many blessings to you from the Buice Family.

Organizer

Elia Buice
Organizer
Memphis, TN

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