Avid sportsman and prominent U transplant physician, Terry Box, will be participating in one of the most rigorous bicycle races in the world: the 2009 Race Across America.
He and seven fellow friends and physicians plan to bike the more than 3,000-mile route from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md., in less than 12 days with the goal of promoting organ donation and transplantation.
Their race begins Saturday. As a whole, the team will race 24 hours a day until they reach their destination, taking turns in 30-minute shifts.
This ambition was motivated by an incident in 1999. Box found out he had a tumor in his liver and was in urgent need of an organ transplant. Fortuitously, they found a donor and the doctor found himself on the operating table where many times he was the one holding the scalpel.
In 2002, when Box finally made a full recovery from his successful transplant, he made an oath that his lifestyle wouldn’t be negatively affected.
“I knew if I got a transplant, I wouldn’t let it slow me down a bit,” Box said in a statement.
Like many of the patients Box has treated, he hopes to demonstrate his fortitude in RAAM.
“I also felt I owed that to my donor’s family,” he said.
Box is a key member of his chosen charity, Team Donate Life, an organization that promotes organ donation and transplants, also nationally recognized by the moniker “The Liverators.” He and the organization have been involved in RAAM since 2005 and have managed to raise thousands of dollars for the cause, according to a U Health Care press release.
In the past four years of the race’s history, the RAAM racers have together raised a total of more than $1 million for their causes.
More information about the race is available at www.raceacrossamerica.org.