A local resident has been awarded one of the province’s highest honours.
Linda MacDonald, who lives in Sherwood Park, received the Premier’s Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities Award of Excellence in Public Awareness for her work advocating and bringing awareness to her own conditions.
MacDonald has myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), which is a complex disease involving profound dysregulation of the central nervous system and immune system, and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), which is a disease characterized by symptoms attributed to exposure to low levels of chemicals, along with Fibromyalgia. She was the first to survey research funding for ME/CFS in Canada and spearheaded the creation of Alberta’s first clinical guidelines for ME/CFS.
She was nominated by her mentee Hannah Norenberg, who nominated the resident due to her hard advocacy work. On the eve of International Awareness Day for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia on May 12, MacDonald said she is honoured to be given this provincial accolade.
“It was a great surprise and really very welcome because I have had a hard year,” MacDonald said, adding she had experienced an incident of discrimination in 2019. “My life has definitely been full of a lot of sunlight and shadows so I gloried in this very bright and wonderful acknowledgment. The most important thing to me was feeling a sense of community belonging when I received the award publicly.”
