Running Through Cancer

Strong title, but that’s what I intend to write about. It’s April so it’s Cancer month here in Canada. The Canadian Cancer Society has commercials on the radio asking who inspires you. The answer, my dad.

Around 2003, while driving me home one weekend from university my dad told me that the ulcer he had in his stomach was no ulcer at all. After much testing and missed diagnosis’ my dad’s team of doctors discovered stomach cancer. Upon further testing they found lung and skin cancer as well.

Instead of talking the advice of doctors to have chemotherapy, my dad decided to cleanse his body and “run through the cancer”. My dad has always been a runner, a fast runner. His personal best is 2:18 in the marathon and he used to run a 46 second 400m. Now he had a new hurdle.

We ran together, taught clinics at the local Running Room and got on our road bikes. We would ride all through Mount Albert, Udora, Sandford and Queensville on our bikes – trash talking each other the whole way! He cleaned up his diet, nothing drastic, but ate well. I remember one summer biking through Quebec’s Mount St. Anne mountains then turning around and going for a run.

Every month my dad had to make trips to Princess Margaret Hospital. He would never let us go with him because he didn’t want us to see the death and dying around him. He was apart of a group of regulars that would wait in the waiting room together. Some brought cookies, some stopped coming. My dad braved this on his own. We weren’t allowed to say that he was a cancer patient, we had to say he had cancer. It wasn’t apart of him.

My dad is cancer free. He never accepted the cancer. He’s brave and strong, as a father should be. This inspires me everyday. To be just like dad.

Who inspires you?

Jen Mark BSc., CAT(C), CSCS
www.dynamicliving.me