Kamloops musician Madison Olds has been raising money to give her boyfriend stem cells for Christmas.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Madison Olds
December 08, 2020 - 3:14 PM
Kamloops musician Madison Olds has been raising money to give her boyfriend stem cells for Christmas.
Olds took to the social media platform TikTok and in just eight weeks, with 21 dance videos, she has raised $82,026.
Olds's boyfriend Derek was involved in a serious motocross accident resulting in a broken back, a severed spinal cord and two lacerated lungs, according to the GoFundMe page. He was told he had a zero per cent chance of walking again.
Three years later, after doing a lot of research the couple found a treatment program that uses stem cells to help promote the regrowth of spinal cords.
He was accepted for treatment at a facility in Medellin, Columbia. However, the price for the treatment is $75,000.
The Kamloops-born musician launched a campaign on her TikTok page, which has over 400,000 followers, to raise money for her boyfriend's treatment. She would post a video performing a popular dance, featuring Derek.
In her 18th video, Olds tagged famous social media personality David Dobrik, hoping we would repost the video and do a duet. So far, she had raised $35,000 out of the $75,000 mark.
In response, the YouTube star posted a video yesterday, Dec. 7, telling Olds that in partnership with Postmates, he’d be granting her Christmas wish and giving the pair $50,000.
The GoFundMe page for Olds's boyfriend has now reached $82,026.
“I saw that he had duetted me and partnered with Postmates to give us $50,000," Olds said in an interview with iNFOnews.ca. "It’s safe to say I pretty much cried, all night,”
She’s still in complete shock.
“It’s like the feeling of winning the lottery, you never expect it’s going to happen to you,” she said. “It was just a great way for me to be on social media and do something that I love, and I never expected to have something like this happen.”
The two will be documenting their recovery journey online as Derek goes through treatment.
“We get to be an advocate for stem cells, so it’s just the beginning,” she said.
Treatment is relatively new, but if it’s effective, Derek could regain feeling and movement in his legs and transition to standing, walking and even climbing stairs.
“We’re having realistic expectations, but the dreamer in me can’t help but feel like it’s going to change everything for him,” she said.
She has kept the donation a secret from her boyfriend so far, and will post a video telling him the good news tonight.
You can check out her reaction TikTok here.
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