Community Comes Together To Help Local Teacher Beat Lyme Disease

The local community is coming together to help a West Babylon teacher suffering from Lyme disease.

Tricia Shannon, a teacher at JFK Elementary School in West Babylon, was diagnosed a few years ago with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease, which happens when a tick bite goes undetected.

The disease causes neurological and physical symptoms such as word repetition, body jerks, arthritis like pain and swelling in the joints, fatigue, and dizziness.

Due to the severity of her symptoms, Shannon recently had to take a leave of absence from her job.

In order to help her out, West Islip resident Theresa Paquette, who is the cousin of Shannon's husband, has started a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe and planned an event next month.

"When these symptoms first started, she took every kind of test, from spinal taps, MRI, blood work, you name it and she had it, but the tests came back negative. She then had a doctor who sent her blood work to a special lab in California and that is when she was finally diagnosed with Chronic Lyme," Paquette, who has known Shannon for over 25 years, wrote on the page. "She has been battling this disease for a long time and has tried every type of treatment that this country offers."

According to Paquette, the Center for Disease Control doesn't acknowledge Shannon's illness as a true disease, resulting in Shannon having to pay thousands of dollars for her treatments out of her own pocket.

"She has spent over $20,000 on treatments that haven’t helped or have only given her temporary relief from her symptoms," she told Patch.

As a result, Shannon has been researching different treatments and recently found that in Germany, they do recognize this as a disease.

She has been speaking with a medical team there and with many people who went there for treatment and has decided that this is her best chance to fight this disease.

Unfortunately, the procedure has a hefty price tag at $40,000.

"One of our cousins asked her husband how they were going to pay for it and he said he just didn’t know," Paquette said. "That’s when we knew that we had to do something to help them. My sister-in-law suggested a GoFundMe page and that we have a fundraiser at a local bar."

Paquette and some friends, who call themselves 'Tricia's Tribe,' started the online fundraiser earlier this month to help raise the $40,000 Shannon needs for the procedure.

As of Friday, the page is almost halfway to its goal at $18,625.

"Since we started the page, Tricia got word from Germany that she was accepted and will be starting treatment on April 17," Paquette told Patch.

In addition to the page, a fundraising event will be held on Sunday, May 6 at the Post Office Cafe on 130 Montauk Highway from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The event will include light fare and entertainment for a $10 and t-shirts will be sold during the event as well. All proceeds will be going towards Shannon's treatment.

"I want people to know that Tricia is such a kind person and would do anything for anyone," Paquette said. "She is not the type of person to ever take a day off of work. This is a real disease. The symptoms are debilitating."

To learn more or to donate, visit the GoFundMe page here.