40 years ago today Terry Fox, a 21 year old Canadian who lost a leg to cancer, began an east to west cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. He ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day and made it to 145 days and 5,373km before he was forced to stop and he lost his battle with cancer.
So glad your daughter came through this and congratulations on her cancer free status. Hopefully there will be a cure for this dreadful disease sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, this post as it is currently formatted breaks rules 1 and 2 in our sidebar so I will have to remove it. This type of post is more appropriate in a community like Today I Learned, which is not focused on tips and tricks to make your life easier.
An absolute legend. I remember being taught his story in school and thinking how cool the whole thing (except the cancer) was. The Terry Fox Run is about celebrating him and overcoming major hurdles.
I can’t wait to see the day when we actually have a solid curr for most cancers and it becomes no less leathal than the flu after we invented vaccines or infections after the discovery of penicillin…
To many amazing people die this agonizing and cruel death…
Definitely, after we find solutions for the most lethal cancers we will probably only see life expectancy go up by 5-10 years and have most people die from the 2nd and 3rd highest killers, cardiovascular and brain diseases. There are some promising possibilities for treating heart and vascular disease with things like cell therapies and tissue engineering but the brain is going to be a tough nut to crack.
I picked up running during covid and eventually started running marathons. After running my first one, it took me a week to recover. Terry Fox ran one every day but he had only one leg which means it was like running two marathons per day. He’s an absolute beast.
It turned into a nationally supported cross country event that brought everyone together. Everywhere he travelled traffic was stopped, news coverage for just about every mile and the country mourned when he announced he had to stop because his cancer had returned. It was such a loss when he died.
He is also memorized on our money and on a page in our current passport s (I believe). Every year since he died Canadian school children participate in the annual Terry Fox run and to date there’s been more $800 million raised for cancer research from the countries who participate. Hope that kind of gives you some insight.
I found out because it was on TV. He must have been in Ontario by then, because the early part of the run didn’t get a lot of attention. I was 10. So if I knew, everyone probably knew.
He died on a Sunday. We were at church and the priest said something about it. It felt like everyone there was crushed by the news.
I think at first it didn’t. As much as history tells us everyone was watching, the reality is that he had some long hard runs through many areas where he wasn’t getting much recognition and wasn’t getting many donations either. Someone from British Columbia walking through Quebec faced some serious challenges in 1980. The big cities speak English, but a lot of the smaller communities along the highway are very French and don’t really speak English.
That thankless run across Quebec, where he was getting run off the road constantly by drivers, barely any attention, and few donations, it must’ve been a herculean task.
If I had to guess, I think it’s probably the Cancer Society that was sponsoring him was able to pull some strings and make his arrival in Ontario on Canada Day (July 1st) a really special event, he met with the prime minister of Canada, prominent sports teams, and virtually anyone he thought would help the cause of cancer research. He became something of a celebrity after that.
A fun fact is that cardio exercise expands your hippocampus, and that indirectly leads to elevation of serotonin levels. So anyone who sets out on a long journey on foot, after about two weeks of that journey their personality will be transformed (and it will continue transforming) into a happier, more socially connected, more charismatic version of themselves.
I suspect this is the secret ingredient behind lots of historical episodes. For example Gandhi walked all over India and that was the basis for his effectiveness as an organizer. Deng Xioping was practically defeated but then led his army on a long march to go around the enemy and attack them from an unexpected direction. During that long march, the communists gained support from the people. Probably because as they walked through town they were showing that enhanced charisma. If you believe the bible, all sorts of people became leaders by doing long walks.
The kid probably didn’t have the social chops to make much of a stir before his runs, but doing that transformed him and so nearer the end anyone who met him would be blown away by his magnetic attraction and inspired by his presence.
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