Terry Fox: Canadian Cancer Research Activist Whose “Marathon of Hope” Inspired Millions

Abstract

From the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusettes (D.P.S.), Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia (D.R.), and Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota (M.A.S., R.A.K.). T errance Stanley “Terry” Fox (19581981) was a Canadian athlete and cancer research activist whose attempt to run from coast to coast across Canada in 1980 inspiredmillions and left an enduring legacy. Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1958 and moved with his family to Port Coquitlam, British Columbia (25 km from Vancouver), in 1968. His parents and siblings noted that Terry was extremely competitive and stubborn from an early age. Despite his small size, he was named “athlete of the year” by his graduating high school class, and he enrolled in Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 1976, where he studied kinesiology, played junior varsity basketball, and planned to become a physical education teacher. Chronic leg pain after an automobile accident in November 1976 eventually led to the diagnosis of osteosarcoma involving Fox’s right leg in March 1977. He underwent an abovethe-knee amputation, followed by more than a year of adjuvant chemotherapy at the BC Cancer Agency. Reportedly, one of Fox’s physicians told him that if he had been diagnosed a few years earlier, he would have received less effective chemotherapy with a poorer chance of long-term survival, which made Fox acutely aware of the importance of cancer research. He was upset when he learned of the limited cancer research funding in Canada at the time of his diagnosis and became motivated to act after witnessing some of the difficult experiences of his fellow patients with cancer. Fox recovered remarkably quickly after his amputation and began to walk with a prosthesis less than amonth after his surgery. He refused to consider himself disabled and joined a wheelchair basketball team a few months later, ultimately winning a national championship. After reading about Dick Traum, an amputee who completed the New York City Marathon in 1976, Fox decided to run the entire East-West length of Canada to raise money in support of