Community: Nampa doctor to be honored by cross-country bike tour
By Nathaniel Hoffman
NAMPA – As Canyon County cyclists train for the first ever Bob LeBow Classic Bike Tour, LeBow continues to train his mind and body after a July 2002 bike accident that left him paralyzed.
LeBow was an avid cyclist who used to commute to his job as medical director of Terry Reilly Health Services in Nampa by bicycle and had ridden his bike all over the world. Now he speaks in short sentences through a ventilator from his son’s home in a Philadelphia suburb.
“Too bad I can’t ride in it,” LeBow said, adding that he was honored the ride was named after him.
LeBow and his wife have race bibs number one and two pinned up near his bed, and their son Ted LeBow and granddaughter Becca are coming to Nampa to ride in the tour on Saturday.
Bob LeBow’s wife, Gail LeBow, said she has seen tandem bicycles that can accommodate quadriplegic people and hopes the couple will one day be able to ride again.
“It’s a very steep learning curve,” Gail LeBow said of all the details that come along with taking care of her husband.
But Bob LeBow, 62, said his stamina has increased from almost zero to the point that he does physical therapy exercises and is learning how to write with a special computer and paint with a mouth stick.
He is learning to use a chin switch and eventually a chin mouse so that he can write on his own and practices on a computer screen mounted to his chair.
“I’ve been gradually improving my writing,” Bob LeBow said.
He published a book shortly before the accident exposing many of the weaknesses in the U.S. health care system, and the book will soon come out in hard cover.
The LeBows said they miss Idaho and the clinic and are glad that people are still thinking about them.
“I’d like to be there,” Bob LeBow said.
For more about the Bob LeBow Classic Bike Tour.
Bob LeBow is a past PNHP president.