Residents celebrate three decades of outrunning cancer

If a person was diagnosed with the type of cancer that took Terry Fox's life, they would have an 80 per cent chance of surviving, unlike the 15 per cent chance Fox had more than 30 years ago.

For Lou Fine, who ran with Fox more than 30 years ago, that's the cure Fox was running for.

Fine followed Fox on the last leg of his run from French River to Thunder Bay. At the time, there were nine directors like him working for the cancer society, he said. Each of them looked out for Fox in their respective districts.

“I said, 'this is how we work — you run, I'll manage,'” Fine said at the Terry Fox Run for Cancer Research at Bell Park on Sept. 19. “And that's the way it worked out. We worked fine, we never had a problem. I swore he'd never have to go a doctor unless he asked for one.”

Fine said Fox only asked for a doctor twice. The first time was when tendonitis took over his foot, and the second time was the one “we all know about — when his lungs finally became infected and he just couldn't run.”

During their last conversation together, Fox told Fine cancer had returned to his lungs, and he had to go home to get straightened out.

“Then I'm coming back,” Fine recalled Fox telling him.

Even though he never came back, Fine said Fox is still “alive and kicking as far as I'm concerned, and he'll be around for a long time.”

Frances Summerhill, honorary chairperson of the Terry Fox run in the Greater Sudbury, said more than 300 people participated in this year's run, and brought in almost $39,000.

Summerhille said all the money raised goes towards cancer research, “as per Terry's wishes.”

“Four-hundred-fifty Canadians are told every day that 'you have cancer,'” she said. “That's why we're here today.

“(Fox) taught us that with courage, determination, commitment and passion, that anything is possible.”

People from around the world have been participating in the Terry Fox Run for Cancer Research for the past 30 years.

Over the years, upwards of $500 million has been raised for the Terry Fox foundation.

“He united a country — really, he did,” Summerhill said. “When you think about it, he sort of united a world against a common cause.”