‘Move Because You Can’

After her amputation, Jenn Andrews sparks a movement for moving

After Jenn Andrews and I spoke for the first time in 2018, I hung up the phone and went for a run. I am not a runner.

Jenn has this effect on people. Earlier that year, she’d had surgery to amputate her lower right leg. It was her best shot to cure myxoid sarcoma, a life-threatening cancer that came back after Jenn had it surgically removed three years earlier. It was a heartbreaking decision for someone who loved jogging, Orangetheory, and keeping up with her kids. Before surgery, she posted a tearful Facebook Live video with a request for her friends.

“Get out and move on Monday. For me. For all the people that want to so bad and can’t. So whether that means going to a class you love, whether that means going on a run in the rain if it’s crappy outside, whether that means going for a walk on your lunch break, even if it’s just 15 minutes. I’m asking you to get out and move because you can.” 

By the time Jenn awoke from surgery, thousands of social media photos, messages, and videos of people being active bore the hashtag #moveforjenn. 

Jenn’s sadness transformed into determination. At her first appointment after her surgery—before she even began to get around on a traditional prosthetic leg—Jenn asked her doctor about a running blade, a lightweight, springy prosthesis that would let her exercise again. Her doctor broke hard news: “That’s extra.” Health insurance doesn’t cover running blades, which cost between $5,000 and $50,000 and require repair or replacement every three to five years. Jenn could get a blade, but she kept thinking about those who couldn’t.

“I was so angry, thinking about all the people who weren’t being active because of the financial burden,” Jenn says. “The average family can’t afford this.”

Jenn and her husband, Miles, started Move For Jenn, a foundation to raise money for sports prostheses for people with sarcoma who need them. When I talked with Jenn five years ago, it was a seed of an idea. They had no experience in nonprofits; they learned as they went. Today, Move For Jenn has given grants to more than 50 people, from young children to seniors. The grants are life-changers. They’ve allowed a high schooler to try out for the track team, a man to jog with his dog, a paralympic athlete to compete, a little kid to play with the neighbors, and someone to simply walk on the beach again.

“Everyone deserves the right to be active, regardless of what their goals are,” Jenn says. “We support all of the goals.”

I focus much of my career on health writing, about cancer in particular. It’s personal. Within 18 months, I lost my mother-in-law and dad to cancer. So many of you can relate: As soon as you hear the word, you’re Googling what you shouldn’t be Googling, entering a world of unreliable and contradictory information. When I write, I point to voices of research, patient advocacy, and hope. 

Through this work, I meet the toughest, kindest people imaginable. Like Jenn. It amazes and humbles me: These survivors have every right to prioritize themselves, but they shift their focus to others. They’ve gotten that terrifying diagnosis—they understand all too well the value of time—and then they give their time away. Between chemo, jobs, and raising families, they raise money for research, lobby for diverse clinical trials, or start support groups. To Jenn, the shift of focus seems natural.

“I felt so alone in my diagnosis. I felt so lost. I had a hard time finding people who could understand my emotions, my fears,” Jenn says. “Every time we give a grant, it restores something in me that cancer stole. This whole process of helping other people is cathartic to my healing as well.”

This year, Jenn celebrates five years of being cancer free. “I’ve always had anxiety and fear of my cancer coming back, of dying and not being here for my kids,” she says. “But this feels like I can take a breath. It’s a new hope.”

On Dec. 9, Jenn will celebrate with more than 1,000 people at the Move For Jenn Pajamas All Day 5K and 10K. People young and old will jog, walk, roll, or skip their way to the finish line in their jammies. They’ll move because they can. Then Jenn just might do what she usually does at this event: present another grant to help someone move because they couldn’t.