Large crowd turns out to support blind man's dying wish

Saturday, 21 December 2024

It might have taken twice as long and the occasional support of two wheels, but Mike Asmussen made it.

“289 park runs,” the blind runner said with a smile as he collapsed into a wheelchair.

Asmussen’s plight has captured the hearts of many this week after he revealed he had terminal brain cancer.

With just weeks to live, Asmussen, a keen park runner at Christchurch’s Hagley Park, said he was determined not to just “sit in the corner”.

Instead he wanted to keep running for as long as could with the help of Achilles NZ voluntary guides, even though he and his family know it will mean days of exhaustion.

But Asmussen doesn’t mind.

“Its important for me to set goals and try and do something every day to make the community better,” he told Stuff in the lounge of his Christchurch home earlier this week.

Legally blind from birth with just 10% sight in his left eye, Asmussen has never allowed the impairment to get in the way - a legacy he puts down to the way he was raised.

Both he and his sister who is also blind, were main-stream schooled and told from an early age that the world was not going to change in order to fit their needs.

“Mum and Dad told us we needed to adapt to achieve our goals and didn’t stop us from doing anything.”

That determination has seen Asmussen defy the odds. Even with difficulty in co-ordination and speech, and with little energy reserves, he battled his latest park run.

And won.

With son Daniel by his side, Asmussen struggled to keep his emotions in check but there was no denying the exhilaration as he crossed the finish line.

“Another one on the way to 300,” a supporter told him.

“Yip,” he said stoically in typical fashion, confirming he’ll be back next week for the five kilometre loop if his body will let him.

Guide Mark Boon has run with Asmussen since 2019 and counts him as a close mate.

The pair have been through a lot side by side, but Boon says his decision to be a guide runner for Achilles has gifted him so much more than he has given - especially when it comes to his mate.

“He’s so very kind and always worried about other people,” Boon says. “And if there’s something going on in my life, he’s always asking how I am. It works both ways.”

Asmussen credits training for an Outward Bound course in 2012 for giving him the running bug. Not long after he found Achilles, who were providing athletes with disabilities the chance to participate alongside able-bodied athletes in local, national and international events.

He and his family can’t speak highly enough of the organisation or the many guides who have helped him fulfil his dreams, including Christchurch based volunteer Vanessa Gopperth who played a significant role in helping him complete the New York marathon last year.

It’s been less than two months since Asmussen first suspected something was seriously wrong after he couldn’t tie up his shoelaces. He was also dropping things from his right hand, and his guides began to notice his speech was slightly slurred.

The news that came back wasn’t good - cancer in the brain and it had spread.

Determined to fight for every extra day, Asmussen pinned his hopes on immunotherapy which could have prolonged his life for six weeks, but his body couldn’t cope with the steroids required to make that happen.

“It’s now quality of life with weeks to go,” he says pragmatically. “Which has been a special time for family because often you don’t get to say goodbye. It’s important,” he adds, “to set goals and try and do something every day to make the community better”.

His prognosis caused Boon to contemplate the simplicity of a friendship that was born out of a disability and a Saturday morning run around a park.

“Too often in life we are too slow to give praise to things we are grateful for in life,” Boon says. “It occurs to me that at Hagley Park it's not so much the course but the people you are with that make the journey worthwhile.”

Asmussen is now determined to savour every moment he has left, knowing this will be his last Christmas.

“I’m resigned to my fate,” he says stoically, “but it's the people you leave behind, your loved ones, your friends that my heart goes out to.”