‘Uncle Terry’ joins seniors on walk to honour his nephew
By Lethbridge Herald on September 13, 2024.
Lethbridge Police Service Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh, Terry Fox and Clancey Page carry a banner as they lead the Silver Fox Walk fundraiser for the Terry Fox Foundation held by Green Acres Foundation at Henderson Lake on Friday.
Herald photo by Al BeeberAl Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Two-time cancer survivor Terry Fox believes his namesake nephew is the reason he’s still alive at 85 years of age.
Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope for cancer research has raised millions of dollars since the first run was staged in 1981.
On Friday, the elder Fox joined residents of Green Acres Foundation communities on their Silver Fox Walk fundraiser for the Terry Fox Foundation.
Fox, along with Lethbridge Police Service Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh and senior Clancey Page led a contingent on a 15-walk at Henderson Lake. Also walking were mayor Blaine Hyggen and deputy fire chief Wes Borland.
On June 28, 1981 Terry Fox died in New Westminster, B.C. a month shy of his 23rd birthday. Fox, who had lost a leg to cancer in his teens was inspired himself by the story about an amputee who ran the New York City Marathon so Fox decided to run across Canada.
On April 12, 1980 he dipped his artificial right leg into the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s NL and began his quest to cross the country on foot one marathon at a time.
On Sept. 1 that year near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Fox’s journey came to a sudden end because of chest pains and a coughing fit. In hospital Fox learned the cancer that had cost him his leg had returned and spread to his lungs.
The elder Fox, whose birth name is Terence, remembers babysitting his nephew when they lived in Winnipeg but after brother Rolland and wife Betty moved to B.C., he only saw him about once a year.
While visiting his nephew in hospital after Terry was first diagnosed with cancer the elder Fox was told by Terry that in the children’s ward where he’d been put, seeing children with no hair and unable to get out of bed made him realize he couldn’t feel sorry for himself anymore.
Uncle Terry, who moved to Lethbridge in 1977, was first diagnosed with prostate cancer which he battled for a decade and has fought bladder cancer for the last 11 years.
And despite his own health battles, Fox feels he owes it to his nephew to keep walking in his memory in hopes a cure for the dreaded disease will one day be found.
“He was my nephew, he was my namesake and I’ve had cancer,’ Fox said before the walk Friday. He’ll also be walking Sunday in the annual Terry Fox Run with starts at 11 a.m. at Legacy Park in north Lethbridge.
Fox has lost six siblings and five didn’t live as long as him. Brother Rolland died in 2016. Rolland’s wife Betty passed in 2011.
“It’s very important to me,” he said of the annual walk. And for Canadians as a whole.
“I tell people we are winning the war against cancer slowly. We’re in the process of winning it. I’m a good example,I’ve lived 21 years and I’m still here,” said Fox.
“I owe it to him for what he did,” he said of his nephew.
“Anybody can get cancer, of all ages.”
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