(Rylee Hellofs/submitted)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

MS Walk

Battlefords MS Walk kicks off June 1

May 25, 2025 | 12:00 PM

When Rhonda MacDonald looks at her mom’s calf muscle, it’s purple: there isn’t any muscle anymore in her leg.

“My mom worries about that,” she said.

“I have a four-year-old and she thinks ‘I can’t get down and play with him on the floor or like spends time with him like a normal grandma would do.”

In the 1990s, MacDonald’s mother was diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) and the matriarch, who was once a full-time nurse, now struggles to do five tasks a day.

“Getting up in the morning, getting dressed, maybe going to get a cup of coffee in our kitchen – she needs to take a break,” she said.

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According to the MS Canada website, roughly 12 Canadians, mostly between the ages of 20 to 49 are diagnosed every day, making the national rates among the highest worldwide.

(Rylee Hellofs/submitted)

It’s estimated that across the country, 90,000 people have the disease and Saskatchewan in particular, has one of the highest rates in the world – close to 3,700 residents have MS.

The disease is neurologically based and involves the central nervous system in which it attacks the nerves’ protective sheath known as myelin.

“Eventually you imagine if your brain can’t tell you to move your hands, if your brain’s not firing to tell your heart or your lungs or your liver or anything to function, you can’t live without those things and we take that for granted,” she said.

“People with MS don’t get that choice,” added MacDonald of the disease that causes extreme fatigue, blurred or double vision, muscle weakness, memory loss, spasticity, speech problems and tremors and death.

“A lot of people that have MS visually can look sometimes like they’re intoxicated, so breaking the stigma of making sure that people understand that not everybody who has an autoimmune disease is going to look like they actually have an autoimmune disease.”

To raise awareness and fundraise for people living with the disease, the 2025 Battleford MS Walk will be the first official in-person walk since the pandemic and is set to take place on June. 1 from Discovery Co-op Mall, located at 9800 Territorial Dr.

The effort to bring it back to the community this year developed after Rylee Hellofs’ Grade 12 MS initiative in MacDonald’s entrepreneurship class at North Battleford Comprehensive High School.

“She really inspired me to actually get things going again here in the Battlefords,” MacDonald said, noting that until that time, she and her friends had been doing virtual walks individually.

(Rylee Hellofs/submitted)

This year, the goal is set at $10,000 and at the time of this writing, 49 participants and five teams have raised $4,725.

Check-in time will begin at 9 a.m. and ceremonies will begin an hour later before the five kilometre walk gets underway.

Hellofs, now a nursing student, said that in 2019 she had a serious health scare.

“They thought that I might have MS with it being something that runs in my family,” she said, referring to her aunt who has been living with the disease for roughly 20 years.

“Because of that, it was something that was always in my mind and something I really wanted to push towards getting awareness out, right because so many people don’t know about it.”

Hellofs’ family has been participating in the walk for decades and growing up, it has driven her passion for helping people.

“For as long as I can remember, we’ve been actively involved in the MS Walk and volunteering every chance we can whether that’s getting pledges, helping volunteers at the walks, getting things set up,” she said.

“We’ve always been doing our best to make an impact.”

(Rylee Hellofs/submitted)

Calling her auntie “such a strong individual” as she lives with her disease, Hellofs said it’s been inspiring.

“With MS being on of those hidden diseases, I feel a lot of people don’t recognize because it is something that people have to fight through more internally,” she said.

“It’s something that we need to be speaking about more because it is something that affects people.”

The fact that Saskatchewan in particular has one of the highest rates in the world, makes the fight to bring raise awareness in the Battlefords all the more pressing.

According to the John Hopkins Medicine website, while it isn’t known exactly what causes the condition that attacks the body, there are possible factors including autoimmune disorder, environmental or genetic factors. MacDonald said according to some research, there does seem to be a correlation between a vitamin D deficiency and developing the disease.

“We’re a winter country,” she said referring to the lack of sunlight Canadians face during the long winters.

“I think that if this is the disease that affects Canada highly, we should be supporting it and making sure that we can find out what’s happening so we can stop it.”

Funds raised will go towards helping those living with the disease and their caregivers with the costs associated such as expensive medications and equipment like wheelchairs.

“There’s money that can be applied for through the MS Society so, you’re actually supporting people with MS in Saskatchewan,” she said, comparing it to how Telemiracle works.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social