ALS patient receives new van from Lee Health’s ALS clinic

A woman with ALS received a life-changing gift recently.

Lee Health’s ALS Clinic gave Cheryl Teribury a personalized van that will help her get around comfortably.

It’s equipped with a wheelchair lift that usually costs $1,400.

For so long, Teribury has depended on her son to get around. The gift she received will change the rest of her life.

“In my life I have many blessings,” Teribury said.

She takes care of her 90-year-old dad and spends time with her son Joe Clevenger.

You would never know she lives each fighting a debilitating disease.

“I first had weakness in my right hand. I went to a neurologist and learned that it was ALS,” Teribury said.

ALS attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord needed to keep muscles moving and that makes things like getting in a car difficult.

“Thank you, thank you,” Teribury said. “I am so blessed, the biggest blessing.”

Clevenger said the van is life-changing for him, too.

He said he has struggled to take his mom where he needs to go.

“It was a pain to have to help her into my truck which was a major job and then put her chair or wheelchair on the back the back shelf on the hitch to tie it down,” Clevenger said.

The van has ramps that roll out each side and let Teribury roll in.

“It will give me confidence, I’m going to take a trip, what I could never do in that one,” she said. “Freedom, freedom, freedom.”

The van was donated by a previous ALS patient who died. That patient’s family members donated it to another patient.