By Scott Dixon
RIVERSIDE, Iowa – At the 2024 National Disabled Veterans Golf Clinic in Riverside, Iowa, Veterans from across the country are finding ways to engage in the sports and activities that they love, removing barriers to living with life altering disabilities.
DAV (Disabled American Veterans) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) co-present the six-day clinic with support from businesses, nonprofit organizations, and individual donors.
Kevin Astrup is a participant that the golf clinic this year. A retired Marine from Long Beach, California, Kevin has multiple sclerosis. While taking immunosuppressants as part of his treatment for MS, Kevin developed a viral infection leading to an abscess on his spinal cord. He has always loved to snowboard but after the infection was told he would have to give up the sport.
“They told me I would have to ski using a sit ski or a sort of walker with skis attached,” Kevin reports.
While going through rehabilitation at a non-VA hospital in Colorado, Kevin’s doctor convinced him to see how his VA benefits may be able to help him. Kevin had gotten glasses at the VA and gone for checkups before, so he decided to take his doctor’s advice and see a VA specialist.
“I’ve never had a more proactive doctor,” Kevin says of the care team at the Long Beach VA Health Care System. “They will call me at home, and they will work with me to find what I need.”
Kevin is a part-time wheelchair user but found replacement parts and upgrades to his chair were cost prohibitive. When he started coming to the VA, he was asked what he needed and the VA team worked with him to get a new chair, better suited to his needs, at no cost to him.
Getting involved in adaptive sports has given Kevin a brighter outlook; he says events like the National Disabled Veterans Golf Clinic are a sort of therapy session where Veterans from all different backgrounds can come together and show each other what they’re still capable of. He has even found assistance in getting back on his snowboard and hitting the slopes again.
More than 200 Veterans from around the country will take part in the 2024 National Disabled Veterans Golf Clinic, September 8–13, 2024. Kevin sums it all up with a slogan he saw at the golf clinic. “I saw another veteran wearing a shirt that said, ‘same sport – different toys.’”
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