~Sunday, August 11, 2013
Dedicated to
the fight against cancer, and my faith in the human race.
This is a story of inspiration. It is about a courageous young man who was
determined to take himself to the limit for his cause.
“Today I got up at 4:00 am.
As usual, it was tough. If I died,
I would die happy because I was doing what I wanted to do. How many people could say that? I went out and did fifteen push-ups in the
road and took off. I want to set an
example that will never be forgotten.” — Terry Fox, April 1980
Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in a
community near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. Even as a child, he was determined and
tenacious. Terry was enthusiastic about
sports, and even though he was “the little guy” he worked hard in every
game. He had an immense amount of
respect for his Junior High School physical education teacher, Bob McGill, who
would tell Terry, as well as the other boys in his team, “If you want something,
you work for it because I’m not interested in mediocrity.” One day McGill asked Terry to try out for cross-country
running. He had no interest in running,
but started training anyway because he wanted to please his “Coach.” Terry would be exhausted, but loved hearing
the words, “Well done, men,” as they all came in from their run.
Terry also played basketball throughout high school. Although he wasn’t gifted with natural talent
for the sport, his determination and hard work placed him on the Port Coquitlam
High School Ravens basketball team. By the
12th grade, Terry and his good friend, Doug Alward, shared the
Athlete of the Year Award.
At the end of his first year in college, Terry started to
notice an alarming pain in his knee. Doctor’s
soon told Terry his diagnosis: He had a
malignant tumor in his right leg, and amputation was his only hope of a 50 to
70 percent chance of survival. Instead of
harboring feelings of denial and despair, Terry’s strong, willful, unbreakable
spirit made him believe he could outrun cancer.
He believed there were no limits to what an amputee could do. The night before his surgery, his basketball
coach brought him an article which featured an amputee who had run in The New
York City Marathon. It was then Terry
decided he would run across Canada to raise money for the fight against cancer.
Two years after his operation, Terry started a running
program and learned how to run with his artificial leg. In the beginning he ran in the dark so no one
could see him. He ran every day for 101
days, until he could run 23 miles a day.
Terry ran 3,159 miles in 15 months.
Terry wrote a letter requesting support to the Canadian
Cancer Society. They were skeptical
about his success, but he persevered until he earned sponsors and a promise of
promotion from the Cancer Society. On April
12, 1980, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Terry dipped his artificial leg into the
Atlantic Ocean and set out on his Marathon
of Hope.
Beginning before dawn every morning, Terry would run in
shorts and a T-shirt printed with a map of Canada—his friend Doug driving the
support van where they would eat and sleep.
Donations started pouring in as the people of Canada were latching on to
Terry’s dream. Even through bitter wind
and freezing weather, he ran in shorts so people could see his leg. Running 26 miles as a daily minimum, Terry
said, “People thought I was going through hell.
Maybe I was partly, but still I was doing what I wanted and a dream was
coming true and that, above everything else, made it all worthwhile to me. Even though it was so difficult there was not
another thing I would rather be doing.”
Four Seasons’ President, Isadore Sharp, was also caught up in
the dream of the Marathon of Hope, and
pledged $10,000—challenging 999 other Canadian corporations to do the
same. One day in southern Ontario, Terry
and Doug collected $20,000 on the highway; however, one of the most inspiring
and emotional days for Terry would be when a young boy who also lost his leg to
bone cancer, rode his bike behind Terry for six miles.
Terry said he didn’t believe the cancer would come back. He neglected his medical appointments
throughout his run, and couldn’t be forced to see a doctor, but a persistent
cough and discomfort in his lungs finally forced Terry to visit a hospital. Doctors in Thunder Bay confirmed that cancer
had spread from his leg to his lungs. He
had run 26 miles the day before, and now was so weak he couldn’t even walk
across the street. After 143 days and
3,339 miles of running, Terry came home to British Columbia in a private jet—without
reaching Vancouver’s Stanley Park to conclude his run by dipping his artificial
leg in the seawater. Before he left, he
told reporters, “I’ll do everything I can.
I’m gonna do my very best. I’ll fight.
I promise I won’t give up.”
As Terry underwent cancer treatment in the hospital, Isadore
Sharp sent him a telegram and told Terry his marathon was just the beginning
and that a fundraising run would be held in his name every year to continue his
fight against cancer. While he was
battling his disease in the hospital, he was honored with numerous awards; his
portrait was hung in the Sports Hall of Fame; letters came from around the
world; the Guinness Book of Records named him top fundraiser; a mountain was
named after him in British Columbia; and most importantly, donations to his Marathon of Hope reached $23.4
million.
Terry died on June 28, 1981 at age 22. The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy
was just beginning. The first Terry Fox
Run was held that September at more than 760 sites in Canada and around the
world, and raised $3.5 million. On June
26, 1982 a bronze statue of Terry Fox was unveiled east of Thunder Bay Ontario,
overlooking Lake Superior where Terry ended his run on September 1, 1980.
To date, over $600 million has been raised worldwide for
cancer research through the Terry Fox Foundation.
Terry did not lose his fight.
