Brian Kennedy walked his 28-year-old daughter Kristy down the aisle to give her away on December 19, 2014.

Exactly a month later, Kennedy walked with her again—but this time into a Florida hospital. He held her up, since she could no longer properly walk, speak, or see. That’s because just days after her wedding, Kristy Kennedy Spivey was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that attacks your central nervous system and inhibits your nerves’ abilities to communicate.

A doctor said her case was “off the charts.”

Kennedy watched as the disease took over Spivey’s body. He and his wife moved into her and her husband’s house and drove her places. They helped her finish graduate school, where she was getting her MBA. They sat in the library while she sat limp and drooling in class. Kennedy even wrote one of his daughter’s papers. He got a B.



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The only thing that helped Spivey’s condition: Tysabri, an aggressive immunomoulator medication typically reserved for patients who have had no success with other treatments. Slowly, her symptoms improved.

But she’s on a time limit, says Kennedy. Tysabri suppresses the immune system, which can cause a life-threatening brain infection in people with the John Cunningham virus if it’s taken for longer than two years.

Spivey has the JC virus. In fact, 70 to 90 percent of people in the world are carriers of it, according to the World Journal of Neurosciences. It’s normally harmless—unless you’re an MS patient taking immunosuppressive medications like Tysabri. Then it attacks the white matter in your brain.

So for the past few weeks, Spivey—who now walks and talks on her own again, and wants to have children soon—has been reaching out to one of the top MS doctors in Orlando, Fla. Her multiple phone calls, emails, and faxes have gone unanswered.

Kennedy couldn’t take it any longer. “Kristy has two doctors, but they have limited resources. They’re not MS specialists,” he says. “There are a lot of advancements coming out from drug companies, and we want a doctor who is on top of them so we can get access to them with no delay.”



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So he decided to beat down the doctor’s door using the best weapon in his arsenal: his daughter’s story. He crafted the fake newsletter below and sent it directly to the doctor’s office.

Justin Miller

“I was frustrated. I’ve watched Kristy go through all these hard hurdles, and my frustration just grew,” he says. “The toughest part about her situation is not knowing how to help. We’ve been supportive, but I find myself not equipped to help her besides that.” (If you would like to help Kristy and others with MS, you can contribute to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.)

Kennedy wrote the letter two days ago. He’s not sure if it was his letter or his family’s multiple phone calls, but Spivey finally heard back from the doctor’s office. She’s now on the waiting list.

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