Friday, July 11, 2008

Terry Fox, a Simon Fraser UNiversity graduate, British Columbia


I visited Somon Fraser Univeristy (SFU) at the city of Burnaby today. SFU is mid-size university, and it actually is a well-known university in Canada. I was impressed by a huge complex on campus. Ir seems to me that most colleges and offices are located in a one huge building. I also saw a sculpture of Terry Fox, a Simon Fraser graduate. His story really touches me. Here is a brief introduction form Terry Fox foundation. " Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.
While in hospital, 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.
Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario. It was a journey that Canadians never forgot. However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22. The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning. To date, more than $400 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world. "
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1 comment:

A Journey with Cancer said...

Its nice to see new people learning about Terry Fox and osteogenic sarcoma. My son was diagnosed in January 2007 and just had his left leg amputated including his pelvis. We are currently in Toronto (our home is in Winnipeg) recovering from surgery and waiting to see what the next steps of chemo will look like. You can check his blog www.hisnameisearl.blogspot.com if you like.