Man Pushes IV Pole Across Country To Fight Childhood Cancer
BOSTON (CBS) - With a frigid dip at Carson Beach Wednesday, a California man celebrated a journey of more than 3000 miles to fight cancer. Kevin Fern has spent the last seven months walking from Los Angeles to Boston and he did it pushing an IV pole the entire way.
Sound a little crazy? Not to him. "This is about childhood cancer. It's personal to me, and it's a mission that I will continue with until I'm gone from this earth," he says.
The proverb says a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, well Kevin took that first step from his home in Los Angeles in March. The goal? To walk all the way to Boston pushing an IV pole, a symbol of the burden of cancer and the difficulty of beating it.
"You try to push this thing through the Mojave desert through the sand in 110 degree temperatures, on the hairpin turns in Pittsburgh, and the Appalachian Mountains with fracking trucks coming at you at 65 miles an hour. It's hard. It wouldn't be a quest across America, or easy, or everyone would do it," he says.
That coast-to-coast quest is to raise money and awareness to fight cancer and to support special camps where children can get away from their treatments and just be kids. Kevin knows what it's like. He beat cancer when he was a teenager with IV chemo treatments.
On Wednesday, the journey came to an end, at Carson Beach in Southie. From sea to shining sea. "It's that feeling of, I need to finish and complete, just like completing your cancer treatment," he says.
Kevin will visit kids at Children's Hospital on Friday, and then head home. There, he hopes to create an annual fundraising walk, with people pushing IV poles for 20+ miles.
CLICK HERE for more information about Kevin's mission.
