Terry Fox

September 17, 2005 3:49 PM

Today, Canadians are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the life and death our greatest hero - Terry Fox. I was only 10 years old when Terry dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic ocean and began his run across Canada with the aim of raising just $1 for each Canadian. Sadly, he had to end his run after only the halfway point when the Cancer spread to his lungs. Terry passed away less than a year later. Terry Fox runs worldwide have raised exponential amounts more than Terry could have ever imagined. He makes me proud to be Canadian, and I still get choked up thinking about him.
posted by SSinVan (31 comments total)

As much as sappy sports stories tend to annoy me, I caught a nice segment about Terry on SportsCenter and was moved to see the snowball effect his run had across Canada. I'd never heard of him before.
posted by Sellersburg/Speed at 4:18 PM on September 17, 2005

See also last year's thread, which was when I first learned about him. A true hero in an age when they are hard to come by.
posted by gwint at 4:21 PM on September 17, 2005

And it looks like the Douglas Coupland book about Terry is out. Coupland's link has some cool photos.
posted by gwint at 4:24 PM on September 17, 2005

The movie based on Coupland's "Souvenir of Canada" books screened this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. Terry Fox is the only individual featured in the movie because, as Coupland's narration explains, he's the only person everyone in Canada can agree on.
posted by Robot Johnny at 4:27 PM on September 17, 2005

Thanks for the CBC archives link re: the announcement of his death. As I was only 2 years old at the time of his marathon of hope I have never seen any of the original news footage regarding it or Terry Himself. However, as someone that young, I can say with certainty that his legend and lifestory was such an organic piece of Canadian culture to me. I have never know life without knowing of Terry Fox, and I am reminded of that every time I pass his statue here in Ottawa (right accross from the Hill).
posted by aclevername at 4:35 PM on September 17, 2005

How perfect and cool that Coupland chose the picture of him (in gwint's link above) sitting in the good Chair in his parents' living room wearing his cheesy grad tux (mine, from about the same year, was a spectacular all-white Saturday Night Fever wonder, which I ended up barfing all over by the evening's early conclusion. But that is another story.) Anyway, that story makes you realize that it was an ordinary kid who did such an extraordinary thing.

I've driven across Canada three times, and each time I've stopped at the memorial in Thunder Bay by the side of the Trans-Canada at the point where he had to stop. That's what chokes me up.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 5:03 PM on September 17, 2005

Terry Fox was the real deal. Character cubed.
posted by caddis at 5:18 PM on September 17, 2005

Sellersburg/Speed: I completely agree with the sentiment about "sports stories"...but I think this has little to nothing to do with sports.
posted by RockCorpse at 6:55 PM on September 17, 2005

Oh boy, Terry Fox - yeah, he was the real deal. I remember the commotion on the day he ran past our house, back in Newfoundland. I must have been 9 or 10, and I recall being so amazingly excited to see someone who had been on the news so often.

Of course, at the time, I don't know if I really comprehended how much of a difference he would make...

I have to say, it is hard to believe he's been dead for so long, but thank god his legacy remains.

Who among us wouldn't love to make such a difference in their short time on the planet?
posted by newfers at 8:16 PM on September 17, 2005

This morning I ran the 25th anniversary Terry Fox 5K here in Washington, DC. I had NO idea who this person was, just that he (or she, I had no idea and didn't want to ask), had cancer.

Along the race, there was a runner with a prosthetic right leg, which I've seen before, but still amazes the hell out of me....he beat me pretty good.

Best of all, the race usually averages 250 runners but today had over 800.

Thanks for the great post.
posted by sdrawkcab at 9:06 PM on September 17, 2005

Terry Fox was Character and Courage and a lot more, he was also Determination Incarnate. He ran 5,373 kilometres in 143 days. That's an average of about 40 km per day (Yes, almost 26 miles, or a marathon) everyday. To my knowledge this is a feat beyond human reckoning.

He did this as a young man who had never trained as a professional athlete. With a leg lost to cancer at the age of 20, he dedicated himself as no one ever had before.

We are richer for having his example from which to learn.
posted by placebo_addict at 9:21 PM on September 17, 2005

Great post. I don't think many (United States of) Americans know the story Terry Fox.
posted by ALongDecember at 10:06 PM on September 17, 2005

.
posted by chunking express at 11:11 PM on September 17, 2005

I'm also anti-human interest stories in sports. I also saw the piece on Terry Fox on SportsCenter. I thought it was fucking unbelievable. What a truly amazing guy.

.
posted by PhatLobley at 11:32 PM on September 17, 2005

My first childhood hero who didn't play hockey.

Also my only childhood hero whose life I still think of as genuinely heroic.

.
posted by gompa at 12:24 AM on September 18, 2005

I have to say that as a US citizen I did not recognise the name at all and only have a very vague notion of his accomplishment. It is certainly not a part of our national heritage as it seems to be of yours. But after watching those news clips and realizing that he averaged more than 26 miles a day, I certainly now appreciate the enormity of what he accomplished and how touching his story really is.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:31 AM on September 18, 2005

.
posted by anthill at 1:10 AM on September 18, 2005

I am tiny compared to a will like that.
posted by srboisvert at 3:06 AM on September 18, 2005

As admirable as Terry Fox and his original run may have been, it is unfortunate that his memory has now been forever commandeered by the Cancer Industry®.

The true "cure" for cancer is prevention, but unfortunately that would mean disassembling our profit-driven, environment-crushing, anti-health economy. Still, if it makes people feel better to throw money at it, I guess it can't be all bad...
posted by fairmettle at 4:30 AM on September 18, 2005

I still get choked up any time I think about Terry Fox's accomplishment. My high school was one of the top fundraisers in the Terry Fox run. I got to meet his mother and his younger brother Darrell, and I just didn't have the words to tell them how much of an impact he'd had. But I think the $200,000+ that my school had raised since 1984 was a good start. :)
posted by antifuse at 4:30 AM on September 18, 2005

Hey, fairmettle, on behalf of my wife, who contracted Hodgkin's disease in her late teens, which a generation earlier very likely would have killed her, but from which she has made a full recovery, I'd like to say that your binary oversimplifications detract nothing whatsoever from the amazing work being done at cancer hospitals all over the world. Work made possible, in part, by the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by Terry Fox and the runs that bear his name.

So, no, it isn't all bad. Though I'm sure you have plenty of peer-reviewed documentation to demonsrate the utter ineffectualness of cancer research and the bodies that fund it. I mean, you wouldn't piss all over a thread about a young man whose courage inspired a nation and continues to do so to this day just to trade in rumour, half-truth, prejudice, and snark, now, would you?
posted by gompa at 7:31 AM on September 18, 2005

The true "cure" for cancer is prevention,

it's a nice fantasy that everyone gets what they deserve, that if someone gets sick, it must be because they did something wrong, but it's just not true. I also went through HD at 26, and have always been very health-conscious and good to my body. A friend of my cousin's went thru testicular cancer and was such a hippie/health nut he thought he could make it go away by meditating and changing his diet etc, but he ended up turning to modern medicine when the tumor just kept growing.

Life isn't fair that way, and while there are some known carcinogens, there are a lot of factors that are just unknown to us, and much of it is probably arbitrary stuff like genetic make-up and whether you were exposed to certain viruses, etc. And the evil western medical establishment has managed to make "cancer" go from something that was identical with a death sentence, to something which is often entirely survivable - so for all its faults, you gotta give props where they're due.
posted by mdn at 7:53 AM on September 18, 2005

Without "pissing" on the thread much more, I'll point to this link for those interested in a "nice fantasy"...
posted by fairmettle at 9:33 AM on September 18, 2005

From the Wikipedia article on Terry Fox:

His pace was daunting. He ran an average of 42 km a day — the distance of a typical marathon. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Rick Worley as the marathon record holder: he ran 200 straight marathons, but over 159 consecutive weekends, not days. No one had ever done anything similar to the task Fox was undertaking.

I live in Saskatchewan, home of Tommy Douglas, but still believe that Terry Fox (who placed second) should have been named "Greatest Canadian" in the recent CBC contest.

To me, there are three main differences between the two men:
1) Tommy Douglas was a politician who, in the end, was just doing his job. Terry Fox was an average citizen who rose far above that suburban banality that he came from.

2) As with most political figures, not everyone agrees with what Tommy Douglas stood for and accomplished (witness the ongoing debate in Canada about private healthcare.) Terry Fox achieved about as close to universal approval as you can get (even FairMettle admits above that Fox's run was admirable.)

3) Tommy Douglas had his negatives (partly due to simply being a man of the times he lived in, true) including a belief that homosexuality was an illness that could be cured and a program of forced sterilization for mentally ill people. Terry Fox rarely has any comparable negatives attributed to him. The worst accusation is that he could be a tyrant while on the Marathon of Hope. Oh, and one reporter accused Fox of not actually running all of the miles that he claimed though the reporter later retracted this statement.
posted by Jaybo at 9:49 AM on September 18, 2005

Sorta on-topic.
posted by deborah at 8:12 PM on September 18, 2005

I'm a USAn, and I remember Terry Fox at the time of his original run (of course, I live near the Canadian border, maybe that makes a difference). I also remember being so shocked and saddened when it was announced his cancer had spread. If I was his age and had lost a leg to bone cancer, I probably would've spent most of my time curled up in the fetal position, whimpering. I couldn't fathom the courage and determination of this remarkable guy. I was pleased to see that at Madamde Tussaud's Wax Museum in Niagara Falls for many years that, alongside figures of Gandhi and Mother Teresa, was Terry Fox.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:34 PM on September 18, 2005

The CBC managed to scrape up some hands and broadcast a special for the Friday run, which was done by schoolkids across Canada.

The kids were, well, kids, but there was a lengthy interview with Terry's parents and some clips of old news footage of Terry from '80. I taped it and watched the footage of Terry with my kids on the weekend. It was amazing seeing him hop along the side of the Trans-Canada highway, often very much alone. Hearing him speak was even more stirring. I was only 8 when it happened, so my memories are a bit fuzzy, but to hear Terry talk... he sounds like a hoser. He sounds like any 20 year-old Canadian. No pretension, just determination.

I get choked up watching old images of Terry. Definitely a Canadian hero.
posted by GuyZero at 6:45 AM on September 19, 2005

The true "cure" for cancer is prevention, but unfortunately that would mean disassembling our profit-driven, environment-crushing, anti-health economy.

Right now that is true, but we are working toward a future where one can expose themselves to carcinogens all day long and then just take a pill to remedy the damage. All snark aside, many cancer researchers would like to do more work on causes of cancer but there is little money for this research. Further, many institutions and researchers themselves are afraid that associating themselves with this research will hamper their ability to raise funds for research towards a "cure."
posted by caddis at 8:03 AM on September 19, 2005

Gompa: So, no, it isn't all bad. Though I'm sure you have plenty of peer-reviewed documentation to demonsrate the utter ineffectualness of cancer research and the bodies that fund it.

What is this, talk like a scientist day? It feels like every thread evolves into a dis about lack of peer reviewed evidence today.

Anyway.

I remember the The Terry Fox Story (1983) (TV) from when I was a kid.

I still get afraid I have cancer every time I get a pain in my leg.
posted by illovich at 12:44 PM on September 19, 2005

The true "cure" for cancer is prevention

You lackwitted troll. Come by my neuro-oncology ward and tell this to one of my glioblastoma patients. Then run away, before I punch you hard in the face.

There's no way to prevent that tumor. We don't even know what causes it.

What made you think you had any reason or right to post on a thread like this one?
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:30 PM on September 19, 2005

I'll point to this link for those interested in a "nice fantasy"...

Well, if by "prevention" you mean, we need to reconsider industrialization and rampant technology in the face of potential world wide health side effects, then I am sympathetic, but you have to remember that would mean we'd all have to give up our ipods, or whatever. It's tough to try to turn back the clock, basically. But that is a different kind of "prevention" than suggesting that individuals who eat well and have a healthy lifestyle don't get cancer, because that's just not the case. I went through lymphoma; a friend of mine from high school died of skin cancer; I met many people going through cancer when I was being treated - and it is just not the case that they/we're any less healthy, on average, than the population at large. There is a fundamental unfairness - randomness - to the way things go.

It's possible to make an argument that the human race as a whole is causing its own demise, but it doesn't hold up on the individual level. If you really think the former is true, though, remember that all the amenities of modern life are potentially making our environment more dangerous and carcinogenic, so even if you eat organically, the creation of your laptop may have released toxic waste into the world - I don't think we know, at this point.
posted by mdn at 8:22 AM on September 22, 2005