The Marathon Of Hope: Terry Fox
Terry Fox is one of the most inspirational Canadians because of what he has done for cancer research and Canada as a whole. Terrance Stanley Fox was born on July 28, 1958 in Winnipeg Manitoba. He was very athletic and loved sports, but when he was 18 he started feeling alot of pain in his right leg. He didn’t think it was anything, so he ignored it. One day his right leg caused him so much pain he could not walk. When he finally went to the doctor, they discovered cancer in his right leg. After treatment he had to get his right leg amputated and his spirit was crushed. He was a very athletic person so not being able to do the things he loved hurt him a lot. However, what crushed him the most was the sight of kids even younger than him go through the same thing, or even worse not recover. That is when he realized he wanted to help kids with cancer and he knew how to do it, he would run across Canada.
After he trained for 14 months, the Marathon of Hope started on April 12th 1980 in St John’s Newfoundland. Terry ran a marathon each day and only took less than 5 days off during the entire marathon. At first he only wanted to raise 1 million dollars but after he raised almost triple his expectations he wanted to raise 1 dollar for each person in Canada.
In January 1981 Terry’s dream became a reality and he raised one dollar for each Canadian. Unfortunately, Terry was not there to see it happen. After 143 days into the marathon, right outside of Thunder Bay Terry asked to be brought to the hospital. The cancer had returned and he had one tumor in each lung, one the size of a golf ball and the other the size of a lemon. Terry died on June 28,1981.
The Terry Fox Foundation is still raising money for cancer research and has raised millions of dollars so far. Every year millions of people participate in the Terry Fox Run. The Terry Fox Foundation has done an incredible job in educating the next generation about cancer and cancer research, the amazing things Terry Fox has done and why it is important to keep the foundation running to help cure cancer. Even though Terry isn’t here with us to celebrate I think he would be happy to know that by 2016 he has raised over 715 million dollars for cancer research.
