In 1985, two years after he first became an arm wrestling world champion, Vern Martel learned what it really takes to beat the odds.
He had to figure out how to walk again after a motorcycle accident. The crash permanently paralyzed his left arm but failed to curb Martel's arm wrestling ambitions. Having lost the ability to anchor himself to the table to provide leverage, the "one-armed bandit" turned to his core strength and sheer muscle power to win again. It took years to refine his technique but he eventually climbed back to the top of the national stage and brought home 12 more world titles.
Now fate has dealt the 53-year-old Martel another cruel twist. Two months ago he learned he has metastatic malignant melanoma, an aggressive life-threatening form of skin cancer. Doctors told the Prince George father of five to get his affairs in order and determine a power of attorney in the event his disease left him unable to make those decisions. Martel took the advice and drew up his will and an advanced medical directive while he prepared for a major operation to have cancerous lymph nodes removed from his torso area.
Having been retired from the sport for two years, Martel noticed Vancouver was hosting the Canadian arm wrestling championships on May 16, three days before his surgery. The timing was perfect, considering he was booked for a PET scan in Vancouver just before the tournament.
Bloated by swollen lymph glands, which added 35 pounds to his normal weight, and still healing from biopsy surgery, Martel wasn't expecting to win when he entered the grand masters 90-kilogram able-bodied class. He just wanted to see his arm wrestling friends again.
But old habits are hard to break and Martel reeled off 10 consecutive wins in the triple elimination tournament to claim his 37th Canadian title. He also finished second in the over-50 physically challenged class and was presented with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of a career which spans 40 years.
"I just had a real uneasy feeling that I should get out and talk to the guys again and put my arm on the table again," he said. "It wasn't about winning, it was to feel that love of the sport. As crazy as it was, I was able to beat the guys. They really are a family out there."
Martel was just 13 when he competed in and won his first tournament in 1975 at the Columbus Hotel in downtown Prince George.
He'd wait outside the bar until it was his turn to pull, rush in for his match and then leave quickly before he got the boot for being an underaged minor.
Martel was into boxing at the time and had beaten everybody in arm wrestling at Blackburn junior secondary school when he locked wrists with a guy who had won a Western Canadian championship and put him down.
Martel captured his first Canadian title in 1983 and qualified for the world event in Costa Rica that year, which he won.
When city councillor Steve Sintich found out about Martel's accomplishment he was recognized by the city as the first Prince George athlete to bring home a world championship.
It took 10 years after his accident to return to his world-class form. Martel repeated as world champion in 1993 in Moscow, Russia, and for the next 13 years he was virtually unbeatable.
A highlight of Martel's career came in 2005 when he won his first of two consecutive titles at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic in Columbus, Ohio.
Schwarzenegger learned of the adversity Martel had faced since his accident and asked him to come to the stage in front of a cheering crowd, where he held up Martel's winning arm in triumph.
"I've done everything I could possibly achieve in the sport and won everything out there that there was to win," Martel said. "It's been one of my greatest joys, outside of my kids.
"It's challenged me, especially having a physical disability, to be as close to an able-bodied person as I can feel. While doing that, it's been an inspiration to other people to see a guy who can't hang on to the peg while everybody else is pulling with their chests.
"I've had to develop a style of my own."
Martel's cancer first showed up last September as a lump on his left leg, which he thought was related to the removal of a vein following his bike accident. A scan confirmed it was malignant melanoma but doctors have been unable to pinpoint where it originated.
"It's a skin cancer but it goes very deep when it metastasizes and it's aggressive, especially if it gets into your lymph nodes, and it can spread to your chest and head," said Martel.
"The way this attacks, it can affect your brain and your way of thinking.
"The doctors have said it's a good thing I'm a healthy person because that's helped offset a lot of the symptoms you normally get. It's almost like my immune system is working overtime to get to what the main problem is.
"I haven't been sick and I wouldn't have known I really had cancer if it wasn't for seeing and feeling how large it grew."
Prior to his surgery at UHNBC on May 19, Martel feared his surgeon, Dr. Ramesh Lokanathan, would discover the cancer had spread to the point where it was inoperable.
"In surgery, you hear about people who die on the table once they open you up, so to learn it hadn't come into the head took about 50 per cent of the stress off," Martel said. "Now I'm thinking I've got more of a fighting chance.
"I've been getting messages from around the world that have been very supportive and if anything that support was just what I needed to come into this operation. It inspired me and pumped up my morale so I'm not dwelling on what's ahead as far as the cancer process."
Martel, a store manager at Michaels Arts & Crafts, had hoped to stay close to home for his future cancer treatments at the Prince George cancer clinic but has since learned his condition will not respond well to radiation. He's now facing a move to Vancouver for the next six or eight months to receive an experimental serum which has proven successful in some European patients.
"I've been through hurdles before and had to overcome obstacles and this is going to be one more that I'll have to overcome," he said.
"Like I told the guys, if cancer had an arm I'd be giving it its worst pull ever."
