Sometimes, a person’s willingness to help fight disease will take them great distances over long periods of time through all kinds of weather and other physical ordeals.
Take Aulden Maj-Pfleger, for instance. The 20-year-old has been fighting MS all his life. While he doesn’t have the disease, it’s been a constant presence in his life. For him, the fight is personal: his mother, St. Albert writer Carla Maj, has been living with MS for more than 20 years.
He wrote at length about it himself on a personal fundraising page hosted by the MS Society, the group he has been involved with since he was 15. There, he describes how she started having vision problems and other strange symptoms in 1993. It took a year and many medical tests for doctors to come up with her diagnosis, one that she has lived with every day since then.
“I was born in 1999 and from that very moment, MS has hovered over every aspect of my family life. Not knowing what could happen and living each day with uncertainty has been the standard,” he writes. “Luckily, with the amazing help of the MS Society, my mom is able to still live the best life possible because of valuable fundraising dollars contributing to research and treatments.”
For five years, this young man has made it his mission to help the MS Society to help his mom, and he’s done it by participating in fundraisers including a number of MS Walks. Those events are typically leisurely strolls of two or five kilometres through the Red Willow Trail system along the Sturgeon River Valley. As an aside, the next one takes place at Riel Park on Sunday, June 7, 2020.
But that’s not enough. Last year, he took his stride and traded it in for a ride ... a bike ride, that is. Many people are familiar with the Leduc to Camrose MS Bike Tour, which covers approximately 200 km over a weekend of riding. He did that in 2018 and again this year. Aulden wanted to do more.
“I rode with my dad and my uncle ... just a small team. I thought to myself, ‘This was a lot of fun. I think I could do this to a much larger extent.’ That was coupled with me wanting to travel Europe because I have never done a long trip and also with the fact that I always like fundraising in whatever way I can. I put all these reasons together and came up with the MS Tour for the Cure idea where I would cycle a section of the most popular longest bike ride in Europe – the Euro Velo 6.”
Starting from Paris, Maj-Pfleger biked more than 2,000 km before arriving in Budapest. The ride took him more than 10 weeks, averaging 50 to 60 km each and every day, camping and couchsurfing along the way. It was a really cool experience, which he shared with his dad, Trevor, and a university friend who joined him at times. It was all very fulfilling as he got to tour some historic Europe sights while working for change at the same time.
“Starting off, it was quite difficult. A joke I always tell when presenting this is that I ask people, ‘what do you think I did to get ready for this?’ People suggest that I probably set a cycle routine or started doing things to stay active. In reality, I did print the T-shirt, so I couldn't turn back because I went too far,” he joked about his MS Tour for the Cure attire.
Otherwise, he packed pretty light, bringing a small tent, sleeping bag, some clothes, a guidebook and bike maintenance gear, all weighing no more than 35 lbs. Some gear was more important than others.
“I had two pairs of long socks and about eight pairs of sports socks ... I can't believe I remember that.”
With this one fundraising effort, he collected $5,000 for the MS Society. In turn, the organization uses that and all other donations to help fund research into the disease while offering supports and services for people afflicted with MS and their families including financial assistance for daily living and home health care equipment.
MS – the mystery sickness
According to the society's website (found at mssociety.ca), Canada has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the world, afflicting an estimated one in every 385 Canadians. It is most often diagnosed in young adults aged 20 to 49. At any given moment, more than 77,000 Canadian adults are living with the strange disease that has no known cause and no known cure. On average, 11 Canadians are diagnosed every day, with women three times more likely to get the news than men.
MS is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, attacking the protective myelin sheath that covers nerves, which is necessary for the transmission of nerve impulses through nerve fibres. Its effects are unpredictable, causing symptoms such as extreme fatigue, lack of co-ordination, weakness, tingling, vision problems, cognitive impairment, mood changes and more.
“I would say one of the most important things was how fulfilling it was, because regardless of everything I would do on the tour, all of it came back to fundraising and raising awareness for MS,” he said.
Maj-Pfleger has become such a driving force for the cause that he has become a national advocate, even travelling to Toronto in September for the MS Can Be Summit, bringing youth from across the country to learn skills on how to live with MS. It’s more than enough to make any parent proud.
“The society has welcomed him with open arms and given him every opportunity to be successful in advocating for people with MS and their families. It was so hard to believe that so many individuals, clubs and businesses in the community put their trust in him and to his credit, he always did what he set out to do even when I was skeptical,” Carla Maj said. “At this point in time, I know that Aulden’s determination to find a cure for MS is not just for me, but for all the amazing, strong people he’s met along the way who will never give up hope.”
She noted she was 22 when she received her diagnosis, which is only two years older than Aulden is now. His energy inspires her, though she admits she is always surprised by his plans for the next silent auction or bike trip or other fundraising ideas, “no matter how crazy it might seem.”
The summit was another cool moment for the young St. Albertan and for many reasons. He was on the planning committee for the summit and one of the keynote speakers, along with Billy Talent drummer Aaron Solowoniuk, who was diagnosed more than a decade ago.
“It was really nice to be a leader and an example for how fundraising can be a lot of fun and how you can raise awareness by combining it with something that you're passionate about and that you really enjoy.”
Going back for more
Maj-Pfleger loved the European adventure so much he’s already planning Trip #2 in 2020. The history/political science double major at the University of Alberta is going to be studying abroad in Cortona, Italy, along with friend Kyle Daniel in the summer. Together, they’re going to use the opportunity to bike from Florence to Naples, a distance of only 500 km. They’re working to raise $15,000 for the MS Society, and you can learn more or help by visiting mstourforthecure.com.
Daniel said taking on the challenge was an easy choice to make. He knows people with MS, as do most people, he says.
“I was already super keen. We had already planned on going to school in Italy. He told me that he had a bike tour planned for about 10 days afterwards. I didn't need much convincing because I'd already planned on sticking around and if I could stick around and also do something for the MS Society, I was all game,” he said. “I think supporting a cause that affects so many people in Canada is very important.”
Going strong is the only option
Maj-Pfleger must get some of that unstoppable-ness from his mother. Carla Maj said MS isn’t something she would have chosen but it has forced her to live a carpe diem life.
She still remembers being 22, being in the middle of her university studies and having the exciting prospects of her whole life ahead of her. The unpredictability of MS was a big wrinkle in her plans.
“I still had two years before I would be finished my education degree and suddenly my future was a great big question mark. Since you can’t plan for what you don’t know, I had no choice but to keep on going,” she remembered.
“I suppose my alternative was to drop out of school and spend my days sulking on the couch in boredom before the internet and Netflix were invented. I did finish my degree and taught for several years before I could no longer do it because of frequent relapses. It was hard to give up a career I had wanted since I was a child, but we can’t always choose our path. We just follow a new one and find out where it leads as we go.”
She said having the assistance of the MS Society, not to mention the overwhelming support and understanding of her family and friends has made her life so much easier, for which she is equally grateful. Her heart and her life are still full.
“I know it’s cliché, but with MS ‘you gotta make hay while the sun shines’. Since life with relapsing-remitting MS is unpredictable as you go from periods of symptoms like fatigue, dizziness, and vision loss to periods of relative recovery, you have to make the most of the days when you feel you can accomplish something while accepting there will be days when you can’t. There’s no point in feeling guilty about it because guilt doesn’t clean the house. All things said? The future is in good hands.”
