Guest Profile

Kelly Downing

Kelly Downing is a wife, mother and teacher. She was an intensive special educator for 15 years and taught various ages, but her favorite age was early childhood. Her husband is also a teacher and a coach, and their sons are involved in many sports. Unfortunately, two years ago her life drastically changed and she found herself in a different kind of race. She was up against the biggest obstacles of her life, when she became partially paralyzed in January of 2012 and totally paralyzed in December of 2012 due to Chronic Lyme and tick borne diseases. She spent three months at an inpatient rehabilitation facility Kindred Healthcare fighting against the chains of tick borne diseases in hopes to regain any use of her body.

Thanks to the selfless determination of the therapists, countless hours of hard work, her Lyme literate doctor and a community of prayer, she is now able to "move" through the neurological and multi-sensory impairments that she continues to battle.

Kelly is continuing to educate her community, schools and churches about the effects of Chronic Lyme disease and the importance of protection and prevention of ticks and tick borne illnesses. She is also in the process of writing a book.

Kelly says, "By the grace of God and a community of heroes, I am continuing to try to heal and persevere. When life gives you lemons or Lyme...God gives you strength because of the heroes He puts in your life"