Jason Keatseangsilp’s journey to the U.S. Open is one full of twists and turns.

“I did not even think a Grand Slam was in question, but now, here we are. So, it really is a dream turned into reality,” tennis player Jason Keatseangsilp said.

We caught up with Keatseangsilp the week before he headed out to the U.S. Open.

“This is a lifetime opportunity,” he said.

He applied for the wild card spot, and days later he received a phone call.

“I got the call from the tournament director saying I got the spot,” he said.

How Keatseangsilp got to this point is its own journey. After playing competitive tennis for much of his teenage years, at 17, he was in an accident that led to a spinal cord injury.

“I was a senior in high school. I was practicing rappelling and I fell off the climbing pole. It was a 40-foot fall,” he explained.

The pain he developed months after put life on hold.

“It was like a sharp, stabbing, fiery, electrical sensation kind of pain,” Keatseangsilp said.

“When I first met him he could barely speak to me because he was constantly doubled over in pain,” Dr. Scott Falci, a neurosurgeon and the founder and director of the Falci Institute for Spinal Cord Injuries at Swedish Medical Center, said. “The spinal cord can progressively deteriorate over time.”

Dr. Falci, who specializes in surgeries on chronically injured spinal cords, was able to help Keatseangsilp with a specialized surgery.

“These processing nerve cells inside the spinal cord can go awry after a spinal cord injury. They can actually start firing spontaneously like a seizure. It's almost like epilepsy of the spinal cord,” Dr. Falci explained.

Doctors are able to record the electrical activity, see it, and destroy those areas with radiofrequency heat.

“As soon as I woke up, I knew I was almost completely pain-free,” Keatseangsilp said.

That was back in 2013. Now, Keatseangsilp is back on the court.

“Within the past year, I've played about 15 tournaments,” he said.

Next up is the U.S. Open wheelchair championships, which expanded this year.

“The 2022 year is very special for the U.S. Open because they increased the draw, the bracket size, from 8 men to 16 men,” Keatseangsilp said. “It really opens the door for more players to kind of have a tangible goal.”

“Wheelchair tennis, wheelchair golf, wheelchair rugby, basketball,” Dane Stair, an adaptive rehab specialist at NeuAbility, said. “There's more and more of it being broadcast nowadays because accessibility is being put more to the forefront of thought.”

Stair is an adaptive rehab specialist at NeuAbility, a rehabilitative wellness center and gym. He works with those who have spinal cord injuries and advocates for more exposure and education in this realm at the university level.

“Finding adaptive sports, adaptive gyms, adaptive anything that takes a group of individuals who have been disabled, brings them together and helps them focus on a formal goal, hopefully, sports, works great for everybody,” Stair said. “As the individual is trying to learn how to live again they have to find different ways to solidify their identity down.”

Keatseangsilp hopes his story and how he found his passion for tennis again after his accident will help inspire others as well.

“[Dr. Falci’s] surgery changed my entire life,” Keatseangsilp said. ”Once people know about wheelchair tennis and they see it in action they get excited to watch.”

HARRISON, Ohio — Thirty kids with physical disabilities had the chance to try adaptive water skiing and kayaking on Saturday in Harrison. For some, it was their very first try at water sports.

Donna Bloemer had a lot to smile about. Her 19-year-old daughter, Katherine, tried water skiing for the first time.

“It's a huge leap of faith to let your child go out in very deep water, but she obviously loved it,” Bloemer said.

Katherine has Rett Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects motor skills and speech.

That didn’t stop her from showing off her skills on the skis.

“Especially during COVID it took away a lot of things that she typically gets to do, and being able to go out outside and to have her safely experience these things was such a blessing for her,” Bloemer said.

That blessing was made possible by the Cincinnati Children’s Be-Well adaptive sports program.

Danny Meyer has helped lead those adaptive sports, including snow skiing, running and even wheelchair basketball.

“You name it, just any sport that you can think of, we'll try it and we'll figure out how to adapt it, to meet the needs of our patients,” Meyer said. “We've gone from one kid to now serving probably over 500 kids throughout the past year or so.”

Cincinnati Children’s reports children with physical disabilities engage in 30% less physical activity than national fitness guidelines suggest.

“I think families underestimate what their kids are able to do, just because they don't have a chance to try it,” Meyer said. “They don't. They're never exposed to it. So when we finally expose it to them, I hear over and over again, ‘I never thought this was possible for my kids. So thank you.’”

Bloemer is grateful her daughter Katherine gets the opportunity to see what’s possible.

“She gets to be a typical kid and she gets to do things,” Bloemer said. “People help her, enable her to be able to reach her fullest potential. And it is just so neat for her.”

To get involved in the program, text BEWELL to 66866 to get signed up for their mailing list.