{"id":42424,"date":"2024-05-29T11:42:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T18:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/?p=42424"},"modified":"2025-06-24T15:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T22:58:16","slug":"determination-dedication-fuels-clinicians-team-usa-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/news\/determination-dedication-fuels-clinicians-team-usa-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Determination, Dedication Fuel Clinician\u2019s Team USA Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article\">\n\t<header class=\"header\">\n\t\t<span class=\"type\"><\/span>\t\t<h1>Determination, Dedication Fuel Clinician\u2019s Team USA Dream<\/h1>\t\t<time>May 29, 2024<\/time>\n\t<\/header>\n\t<div id=\"block_26585c7ca4ea997f354f55ae284a65e6\" class=\"shs-block block-news-article entry-content\">\n\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"acf-innerblocks-container\">\n\n<p>Four years ago, Jeremy Van Tress was lying in a hospital bed at his Corvallis home \u2014 breathing on a ventilator \u2014 watching the 2020 Paralympics from Tokyo on television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeing the hand cyclists compete for gold spurred something in Van Tress. By the end of the competition, he became determined to start training for the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This decision took grit since he had been ventilated, lying in a hospital bed, for nearly three years due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease, or ALS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that day in the summer of 2021 (the 2020 Paralympics had been delayed for a year due to COVID-19), the former collegiate cross-country runner\u2019s competitive spirit ignited. Van Tress\u2019s intense determination and dedication changed his destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just three and a half years later, Van Tress, a licensed clinical social worker for Samaritan Health Services, rolled his wheelchair onto the victory stand in Adelaide, Australia, with two World Cup silver medals around his neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Determination Fuels a Dream\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u4KHt-qGnQc?feature=oembed&#038;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The life-changing process started in his hospital bed. The first step was seeing how long he could remain off his ventilator. It started with a half hour, then 45 minutes and then an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI did this all on my own, without any clinician supervision,\u201d said Van Tress. \u201cI was a bad patient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Tress and his wife, Courtney, have six children. His next goal was to get out of bed and spend time with his family. Sitting in a recliner, Van Tress put together puzzles with his children. By then, he was off his ventilator for three<br>hours at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His next step was to see if he still had mobility in his upper body. Van Tress bought a tabletop handcycle and began working out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Tress was no stranger to hard work. He had joined the Army more than a decade earlier, serving six years on active duty and three as a reservist. His veteran status helped him get his first entry level competitive handcycle through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During his time in the reserves, he began to notice mild signs of hand weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI started to have a hard time opening jars,\u201d said Van Tress. \u201cThen I noticed I was having issues running. I was uncoordinated. I started to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Military veterans are twice as likely to get diagnosed with ALS, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Tress is employed at Samaritan\u2019s Palliative Care offices in Albany and Lebanon and patients sometimes ask him about his experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf requested, I can be a resource for them in that way,\u201d said Van Tress. \u201cI find that I have an ability to empathize.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the three years Van Tress was bedbound, he earned a doctorate in social work from Walden University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI wanted to find a way to keep my brain sharp,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted something to challenge myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His dissertation was on ALS patients\u2019 socioecological resilience, self-determination and decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat aligns with what I do for patients at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Tress will be back on the World Cup circuit racing twice in May, once in Belgium and then in Italy. If he does make the 2024 Paralympic team, he will be back in Europe to compete in the World Championships held this year in Zurich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the World Cup season winds down, Van Tress will set his sights on a spot on the U.S. Paralympics hand-cycling team to represent the U.S. this summer in Paris \u2014 less than four years after he watched the same competition from his hospital bed.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<aside>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"360\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Van-Tress-at-Finish-Line-CO.jpg\" class=\"attachment-cta size-cta wp-post-image\" alt=\"Jeremy VanTress holds up his medals from the Paralympics.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Van-Tress-at-Finish-Line-CO.jpg 360w, https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Van-Tress-at-Finish-Line-CO-300x250.jpg 300w, https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Van-Tress-at-Finish-Line-CO-120x100.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/figure><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"360\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Jeremy-on-his-bike-CO.jpg\" class=\"attachment-cta size-cta\" alt=\"Jeremy hand-pedaling his bike down a street.\" \/><\/figure>\t\t<\/aside>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four years ago 42-year old Jeremy Van Tress lay in a hospital bed breathing from a ventilator, when an event at the 2020 Paralympics motivated him. It was the start of a transformative journey opening doors to global travel and competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":42428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_shs_workflow_notes":"","_shs_exclude_from_navigation":false,"_shs_promote_article_on_blogs":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"news-topics":[285],"news-types":[270],"services":[],"specialty":[],"class_list":["post-42424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","news-topics-patient-story","news-types-feature-article"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42424"},{"taxonomy":"news-topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topics?post=42424"},{"taxonomy":"news-types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-types?post=42424"},{"taxonomy":"services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/services?post=42424"},{"taxonomy":"specialty","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/specialty?post=42424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}