Prosthetic Foot Not Keeping Chicago Climber On The Ground
(CBS) -- A Chicago man admits for the last dozen years,he did three things, sleep, work and climb. Well, about a year ago, something threatened to change all of those things.
CBS 2's Jeremy Ross reports one man at Chicago's Brooklyn Boulders is cheating gravity in a way not many can believe.
One of the things you'll notice about climber Julien "Juju" Gasc is his French accent. The other thing, is the prosthetic he's wearing on his leg.
Cancer's grip latched onto the soft tissue in his right foot and it needed to be removed.
"There was part of me that was like 'Why me. It's so unfair. I need my foot to climb,'" Gasc said.
The man with a passion for climbing eventually approached rounds of chemotherapy like he approaches scaling a surface.
"Just grab the next hold and keep moving forward," he said.
Insurance paid for treatments, a walking prosthesis but not a leg to keep from climbing.
In an effort to keep cancer from taking his foot and his identity, he made his own climbing foot. Duct tape, shoe parts, plastic and wood provide a temporary solution.
Friends convinced him to set up a GoFundMe page. The goal is to raise a couple thousand dollars for a more permanent prosthetic. Julien Gasc proves perseverance comes in all forms, sometimes you need to look up to find it.
Julien says he is now cancer free but adds there's no guarantee that will be the case long-term. He plans to give the extra money he has raised to charities that work with prosthetics.
