Once a teenage cancer fighter, now a hero to be remembered - Terry Fox
Terry Fox, born on July 28, 1958 was an active teenager involved in many sports, especially strong passion towards basketball despite being smaller sized. He was a basketball player, a first-class soccer player, and a gutsy rugby player and he shared the Athlete of the Year Award with his best friend, Doug Alward in twelfth grade. He made to the honor roll a few times and had a fondness for biology.
Terry has excellent self-discipline and perseverance and he has high respect for older people and his coach and parents. As he enjoyed sports, Terry chose kinesiology, the study of human movement, as a major at the Simon Fraser University.
He was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with bone cancer and forced to have his right leg amputated 15cm (six inches) above the knee.
“I don’t feel that this is unfair. That’s the thing about cancer. I’m not the only one, it happens all the time to people. I’m not special. This just intensifies what I did. It gives it more meaning. It’ll inspire more people. I just wish people would realize that anything’s possible if you try; dreams are made possible if you try.”
Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He would call his journey - the “Marathon of Hope”.
“I'm not a dreamer, and I'm not saying this will initiate any kind of definitive answer or cure to cancer, but I believe in miracles. I have to.”
Terry started his run on April 12, 1980 and ran close to 42 kilometers (26 miles) each day.
“When they run with me, they’re usually running for only two or three miles; for me it might be my twenty-sixth mile.”
However on September 1, 1980, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometers (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running because cancer had spread to his lungs. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age of 22, one month short of his 23rd birthday.
He knew that his aim will be supported and continued as Isadore Sharp, Chairman and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts back then, commits to organize a fundraising run that would be held every year in Terry's name and he writes, "You started it. We will not rest until your dream to find a cure for cancer is realized."
Terry was bestowed with a fortune of honors and the newest todate was the Passport Canada announced a new epassport which celebrates Canadian history with an image of the iconic Terry Fox Monument in Ottawa can be found within on March 18, 2014.
“If you’ve given a dollar, you are part of the Marathon of Hope .”
Let’s continue his legacy together!
“It took cancer to realize that being self-centered is not the way to live. The answer is to try and help others.”
Terry Fox Foundation official website:
http://www.terryfox.org/
Click
here for Terry Fox Run 2014 @ Taman Tasik Titiwangsa
CreditsPhotos : Gail Harvey & The Terry Fox FoundationTerry Fox quote images : http://www.rugusavay.com/terry-fox-quotes/http://favimages.net
Live.Love.Life, Ms. Lor
