NEW PALESTINE – Each morning, Lance Oxley straps a small electrical device to his leg that helps him walk.
The device sends roughly 10,000 mini electric shocks down his leg each day, forcing the muscles to constrict and lift his foot, since he can no longer do so on his own.
Since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nearly 25 years ago, the New Palestine man has been determined to take life one step at a time.
Rather than succumbing to his diagnosis and feeling sorry for himself, Lance has taken the disease head on – serving on multiple state boards for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and gathering a growing legion of friends and family to take part in the Walk MS fundraiser in downtown Indianapolis each spring.
Lance counts himself lucky, knowing his disease has progressed relatively slowly since he was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic in the early 2000s after first experiencing symptoms in 1998 at the age of 35.
He’s the only one still alive of the three men with the disease who started an MS support group and fundraising team during Oxley’s 35-year career with PepsiCo.
After he was diagnosed, Lance’s wife, Susan, and a friend decided to participate in Walk MS to support him.
“We gave 50 bucks and she gave 100, so she got the long-sleeve T-shirt,” Susan recalled with a laugh.
Since then she’s enlisted the help of nearly 100 others to build the team – since named Gatorade EnAble – that raised over $50,000 this past spring.
“Once you’re diagnosed with MS, there’s really nothing you can do. We can’t cure it, but this walk is the one thing we can do. I think that’s why it’s been important to us every year,” she said.
Lance can now proudly say the Gatorade EnAble team he started through his former employer has raised more than $300,000 over the years.
That’s quite a leap from the days of Susan’s initial donation that netted a short-sleeve T-shirt.
Supporting others
The Oxleys – college sweethearts who met at Purdue University – devote much of their lives to spreading awareness and raising funds for MS, an often disabling disease of the central nervous system for which there is currently no cure.
An estimated one million people live with MS in the United States. Symptoms vary from person to person and range from numbness and tingling, to mobility challenges, blindness and paralysis.
Lance considers himself one of the lucky ones, whose symptoms have progressed relatively slowly over the years.
“At last year’s MS walk, they were passing out stickers that showed how long you’ve been dealing with MS, and people came up to me and said, ‘Wow, I just got diagnosed and you’ve been doing this for 25 years?’,” he said.
A man of faith, Lance considers it a privilege to be able to support others facing the same challenges as him.
“For me, I’ve always wondered why it happened to me, (and) it’s I think to help other people who had it,” he said.
Working for PepsiCo, he’d often get approached by employees who noticed he walked with a cane and asked if he had MS.
Lance would always share a bit of his experience and encourage them to reach out to the MS Society for resources and support.
He eventually joined the board of trustees for the MS Society for Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee in 2018, and has maintained that role ever since.
Doing so gives him purpose, he said.
He’s happy to report that the MS Society has raised over a billion dollars for research.
“Every drug that’s been developed has been with the support of the national MS Society. While we still don’t have a cure, I definitely think it’s helping,” said Lance, who also set up an MS support group through Hancock Health for individuals, spouses and family members dealing with MS.
The free group meets 10-11:30 a.m. the second Saturday of each month at the Hancock Wellness Center in Greenfield.
Seems like yesterday
Although Lance has been battling the disease since the late ’90s, the day his symptoms first surfaced is still vivid in his mind.
“I went for a long run and when I came back I thought I had pulled a muscle. I couldn’t get my foot to do what I wanted it to do. I was basically dragging my leg around,” he recalled.
He consulted with a neurologist who sent him to an orthopedics specialist, and went on to see a number of other doctors before eventually landing on an MS diagnosis through the Mayo Clinic.
He was later told his type of MS is Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, a rare form found in 10-15% of people with MS.
Treatment for Primary Progressive MS wasn’t available until 2016, when Lance began taking infusions to slow the progression of symptoms.
Thankfully, his progression has been relatively slow compared to many others who face the same prognosis.
To keep symptoms at bay, Lance does a variety of stretches and tries to walk and lift weights each day.
“It’s like anything you do to try to take care of yourself, eat well and exercise,” he said.
He also encourages those coping with a long-term illness to stay active and plan things to look forward to.
“You always need something to look forward to, whether that’s taking a trip or whatever interests you. There’s a high level of depression among people with MS, so planning things to look forward to helps me stay in a positive frame of mind,” he said.
For him and his wife, that includes scheduling vacations, despite the fact traveling with MS isn’t always easy.
Lance reluctantly agreed to try his Functional Electrical Stimulation device (FES) on a family trip to Europe in 2013.
He’s also humbled himself to allow his wife to push him in a wheelchair on vacations, like the trip they took to New York City last Christmas, including a stroll through Central Park.
Traveling with a wheelchair has taught the couple a lot about how people interact with those in wheelchairs in various countries.
“There’s just a disability etiquette that sometimes people don’t know how to deal with,” said Lance. “It’s all about how you treat people. You look them in the eye, and you don’t have to speak louder because somebody’s in a wheelchair. There’s just some silly stuff people do that you would never think of,” he said.
Giving back
Now that they’re both retired, the Oxleys are able to devote more time to travel as well as giving back to their community.
The couple are both in the band at their church, Cross of Grace in New Palestine, where they help out in various capacities.
They also continue to raise funds and awareness for MS.
Their Gatorade EnAble team for the MS Walk has grown exponentially over the years.
One year, someone on the team rented a party bus to transport the team to the walk downtown and gave the Oxleys the VIP treatment by picking them up at their home.
“It was super fun. That’s kind of what motivated us to start a team, just the great individuals who were showing up for us,” Susan said.
At first she’d hand-deliver the MS Walk shirts to each team member before the walk, which became harder to do as the team grew.
“I said, ‘Let’s have a pre-party at our house and have people come to us,’” she said, and they’ve been doing so ever since. Lance also treats team members to drinks at a downtown Indianapolis brewery after the walk each year.
While the bar tab keeps getting higher, Susan said it’s a testament to the number of people out there willing to support her husband and all those who face MS.
“It’s always amazing to see how many people care,” she said.
To learn more about the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the MS Walk, visit nationalMSsociety.org.
For information on Hancock Health’s MS support group, contact Teri Gottschalk at [email protected] or (317) 468-4743.
