Thirty-two-year-old
Melinda Kykoz of Chipman, Alberta – a former patient at the Canadian Shriners
Hospital in Montreal for 20 years - was hoping she’d be among those lucky
Canadians to win one of the five wheelchair accessible vans being offered last
month in a contest by the National Mobility Dealers Association during May’s “National Mobility Awareness
Month.”
Jackie Rae
Greening of CFCW Radio even launched a campaign to get as many votes as
possible with the hopes of getting one of the vans to replace a 17-year-old one
which is no longer roadworthy for wheelchair-bound Melinda who has Cerebral
Palsy and Epilepsy, and has been looked after by grandparents John and Elsie Cooper since she
was two. Grandpa John has been Melinda’s
sole care giver after his wife died in 2009.
When Melinda
and 82-year-old Grandpa John were unsuccessful in winning one of the five vans,
Jackie Rae discussed that dilemma on the
radio station at a time when Al Shamal Shriners Recorder Gary Willis was
listening.
Willis then
discussed the situation with Al Shamal President Larry Howard and the Al Shamal
executive. They, and the Al Shamal membership, quickly agreed to donate the
Shriners 2006 low mileage totally customized wheelchair accessible van inasmuch
as
it
was not being
fully utilized.
The keys to
the van were presented to Melinda and her grandfather at the June dinner meeting of Al Shamal by Potentate Larry Howard in front of a large
group of Shriners and members of Daughters of the Nile, who help support the 22
Shriners Hospitals for Children.
Melinda told
the assembled Shriners and Daughters of the Nile that she had been associated
with the Canadian Shriners Hospital from the age of two until she was 21.
“I was born
with cerebral palsy,” said Melinda, “plus a rare condition where my right hip
kept coming out of the socket. That’s when the Shriners came into my life. I had numerous unsuccessful surgeries until
the 1990’s when Dr. Anne Marie Cantin of the Shriners Hospital in Montreal became a major part of my life and a person I
will never forget.
“In the
early 1990’s, Dr. Cantin and four other Shrine Hospital surgeons, worked in rotation
for 12 hours, completely rebuilding my hip socket. I was in a body cast for six weeks and my Air
Canada flight home required occupying three rows of seats.”
Melinda
Kykosz said as far as the Shriners and the
Canadian Shriners Hospital staff in Montreal are concerned: “You truly are all my angels“.
While the
Shriners and the 22 Shriners Hospitals for Children primarily help children get
well up to the age of 18,” said Al Shamal President Larry Howard, “there are always exceptions where we have assisted
those who are older. In the case of Melinda,
she touched the hearts of all Shriners and we are delighted to provide her with
this van. She is truly an inspiration to one and all, as is her grandfather,
John Cooper.
“I would
also be remiss”, added Howard, “in not commending the Shriners Hospital in
Montreal, and their incredible staff, for the medical care they provided
Melinda for two decades, as well as countless other patients from Edmonton and
Northern Alberta for the last 67 years since the Edmonton Shrine Club was
established in 1946 and then expanded to
Al Shamal in 1985.
Howard said
Al Shamal is also aware of other organizations in need of assistance. Such as
establishing a first ever in North America $3-million Shriners Pediatric Scoliosis
Research Chair at the University of Alberta Hospital with the Alberta
Government contributing $1.5 million; donating $20,000 towards The Fallen Four RCMP
park at Mayerthorpe; providing $50,000 to save Grande Prairie’s Camp Tamarack
for the Disabled from being closed;
establishing a Shriners wing at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital to assist
Shrine patients and other children.
Al Shamal
and the Shriners also established artificial skin banks for the University
Hospital and other Alberta and Canadian hospitals with burns centres, as well
as providing transportation for patients with orthopaedic problems or burn
injuries, plus a parent, to any of the
22 Shriners Hospitals for Children.
“Helping
sick kids get well has always been our motto for the last 91 years that
Shriner Hospitals
have been operating,” said Howard, “including the current 100 active patients
Al Shamal now have. And if that sick individual happens to be over 18 - as
Melinda Kykosz is - she or he, will receive
that same kind of love, care and attention as all patients.”
For further information, contact:
Bruce Hogle, Shriners International
Public Relations Department
Phone (H) 780
487 4566 (C) 780 996 3246
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