It’s going to take more than a badly torn up right leg to prevent Don Wells from completing his third annual Journey for Hope later this month.
The 65-year-old Port Lambton man has been confined to a couch for the past two weeks after a slip and fall at his home put him in the hospital in London.
“I slipped on a ceramic floor and bent my leg all the way back,” he said. “The knee cap shifted and the leg muscle tore away from the femur.”
The leg had already been surgically repaired with a rod from an earlier health issue and Wells said he was slated for a knee replacement. “I’m hoping to get the staples out these week from them re-attaching the muscle.”
Wells had planned to walk the 160-kilometre journey to benefit those who suffer from childhood leukemia but now he will be travelling along by car with those who are stepping in to help.
“I’ve had six or eight people who have volunteered to walk portions of the walk where I can’t,” he said. “As soon as word got out I had calls from people as far away as Owen Sound who volunteered.”
This year Wells’ journey will begin in Port Lambton June 22. He will travel through Walpole Island, Wallaceburg, Dresden, Chatham and Windsor (at the Brentwood Recovery Home) and ending at the Windsor Tunnel on his 66th birthday, June 29.
He’s hoping to be able to turn over as much as $7,000 to the Canadian Cancer Society. Last year he undertook a 2,100-kilometre E-Bike journey from Wallaceburg to Kingston to Owen Sound and back home to benefit breast and prostrate cancer. He raised more than $5,000, but believes the awareness factor had a value several times that amount.
His first trip in 2013 raised several thousand dollars for an Owen Sound soup kitchen and homeless shelter.
Brentwood has special meaning to Wells.
“I graduated from Brentwood over 30 years ago,” he said. “Brentwood and faith in Jesus turned my life around.”
Donations can be made through TD Canada Trust Branch 3792 or through the Cancer society here.
