{"id":488885,"date":"2026-02-21T01:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488885\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:33:07","slug":"cyclists-cross-country-mission-after-life-changing-nerve-condition-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488885\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclist&#8217;s cross-country mission after life-changing nerve condition diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What started as a hiking trip in South Africa turned into a years-long medical journey for Gregory Maassen, who now channels his experience with a rare nerve condition into cross-country cycling adventures to raise awareness and funds for research. In 2017, Maassen encountered a nest of 70 to 80 ticks while hiking in South Africa. The initial symptoms seemed temporary, but the pain returned with a vengeance. &#8220;When I was hiking in South Africa, I ran into a nest of ticks, maybe 70 or 80 ticks and I didn&#8217;t feel good for a week. My whole body was burning, but then it went away so I didn&#8217;t think too much about it,&#8221; Maassen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What started as a hiking trip in South Africa turned into a years-long medical journey for Gregory Maassen,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,196612,635,60717,90045,82],"class_list":["post-488885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cross-country-bike","tag-cycling","tag-johns-hopkins","tag-neuropathy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}