UNews - Calgary hospital /unews/organization/calgary-hospital en Rizos' cancer ride a personal experience /unews/article/rizos-cancer-ride-personal-experience <div class="field field-name-field-op-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="rnews:creator schema:creator"><div class="view view-openpublish-related-content view-id-openpublish_related_content view-display-id-block_1 view-dom-id-9d35e7ae0dbcf31af3ad4e4681815486"> <div class="view-content"> <div class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first views-row-last"> <div class="views-field views-field-title"> <span class="views-label views-label-title">by</span> <span class="field-content"><a href="/unews/profile/trevor-kenney">Trevor Kenney</a></span> </div> <div class="views-field views-field-created"> <span class="field-content">April 15, 2009</span> </div> </div> </div> </div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even" property="rnews:articlebody schema:articleBody"> <p>Facing your own mortality at 13 years old can be a jarring experience. Mackenzie Rizos, goaltender for the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge <a href="http://horns.uleth.ca" rel="nofollow">Pronghorns</a> women's hockey team, did just that &ndash; and then she turned into a positive.</p> <p>Beset by an unexplained series of headaches that spawned two weeks of intensive testing at a Calgary hospital, Rizos feared she was facing a cancerous brain tumour. The tests would eventually prove to be negative and Rizos escaped unscathed, except for a lasting emotional scar.</p> <p>"It was definitely one of the most trying emotional experiences of my life and in the end I was one of the lucky ones," she says, noting doctors told her that on average, the hospital saw three children per day diagnosed with cancer. "It gave me a lot of perspective and I knew one day I would try and find a way to give something to help fight the disease."</p> <p>At the time, the thought was simply a broad idea but it came into focus last summer when Rizos created Mackenzie's Bike Across Canada for Cancer, a summer-long fundraising initiative that underscored her commitment to social responsibility.</p> <p>"It seems to be a disease that no matter who you know, everyone has been touched in one way or another," she says. "It's all over the place and I wanted to do something to support all the people around me who have been fighting it and also try and give back in respects to my own experience and how lucky I was."</p> <p>The Calgary native had just completed her first year at the U of L and taken a summer job with a Calgary sports store. She remembered her <a href="http://schools.cbe.ab.ca/b823/" rel="nofollow">Central Memorial High School</a> cross-country coach who had spent a summer biking across the country as well as the many Terry Fox runs for cancer she had participated in over the years. An idea was spawned to combine the two activities.</p> <p>Rizos mapped out the distance from Victoria, B.C. to St. John's Newfoundland, some 7,400 kilometres, calculated how many days she'd have to ride over the summer and with a little arithmetic, determined a 70-kilometre-a-day ride, May 1 through Aug. 15, would hit her target.</p> <p>She then told anybody and everybody she knew about her plan and implored them to make donations to the cancer foundation of their choice in support.</p> <p>"I decided not to seek any sponsorship myself. People were asked to just directly donate and that way they could pick the organization they wanted to donate to. I basically told people what the cause was and left it up to them," says Rizos.</p> <p>She has no idea how much money was actually raised but after starting a <a href="http://www.facebook.com" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> group to update people on her quest, more than 500 members tracked her progress.</p> <p>"I'm sure in some ways if I had looked for more publicity, I could have raised more donations but it was more a private fight against cancer for me and my friends. Through <a href="http://www.facebook.com" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a> it ended up being my friends and their friends," she says.<br> "The thing I found is that a lot of people want to help but don't really have an outlet to help and once you start creating these opportunities, you maybe inspire some people to help who normally would not have."</p> <p>If you get the idea that Rizos gained perspective early in life, you'd be right. It's also one of the main reasons she chose to attend U of L, because she understood university was more than playing hockey and going to class.</p> <p>"One of the really cool things that attracted me to the U of L was a sense of community. Everyone that I met when I came here was really supportive and went that extra mile to try and help me," says Rizos.<br> "One of the main things that come out of your university life is the connections and the friendships you make and when I looked at a place that would enable me to do that, Lethbridge was the top place, in my mind, that presented that positive atmosphere."</p> <p>The U of L community, not to mention the <a href="http://horns.uleth.ca" rel="nofollow">Pronghorns</a>, is that much stronger with Rizos in the fold.</p> <p><strong>GET THE FACTS</strong></p> <p>&bull; Rizos is studying accounting in the <a href="http://www.uleth.ca/man" rel="nofollow">Faculty of Management</a> and was named an Academic All-Canadian in her first year</p> <p>&bull; Her initiative spawned other fundraising efforts from friends, including ride-along programs, donations per kilometre and one friend who elicited donations based on the amount of weights they lifted during workout sessions</p> <p>&bull; The ride was recognized with the <a href="http://www.canadawest.org" rel="nofollow">Canada West</a> Marion Hilliard student-athlete award</p> <p>&bull; Rizos reported back to the Pronghorns last fall in the best shape of her life, scoring her highest-ever grade on the VO2 max cardiovascular test and helping her gain a spot on the <a href="http://www.canadawest.org" rel="nofollow">Canada West</a> second all-star team this past season</p> <p>&bull; She is not reenacting her ride this summer but plans to find other ways to raise money to combat cancer in the future </p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="field-group-format group_related_topics field-group-div group-related-topics block-title-body speed-fast effect-none"><h2><span>Related Topics</span></h2><div class="field field-name-opencalais-city-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">City:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/city/victoria" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Victoria</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/city/calgary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Calgary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-company-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Company:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/company/facebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Facebook</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-organization-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Organization:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/organization/faculty-management" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Faculty of Management</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/organization/calgary-hospital" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Calgary hospital</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/organization/university-lethbridge-pronghorns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge Pronghorns</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/organization/central-memorial-high-school" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Central Memorial High School</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/mackenzie-rizos" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Mackenzie Rizos</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/terry-fox" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Terry Fox</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-position-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Position:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/position/cross-country-coach" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">cross-country coach</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-provinceorstate-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">ProvinceOrState:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/province-or-state/british-columbia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">British Columbia</a></div></div></div></div><span property="rnews:name schema:name" content="Rizos&#039; cancer ride a personal experience" class="rdf-meta"></span> Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:44:02 +0000 trevor.kenney 5212 at /unews