Intro : Kate Gibbs' Invermere Valley Profile

  Hi  everyone!

My name is Kate Gibbs. I am twenty seven years old who and I was born with Cerebral Palsy(CP).  I live in  the small, goergous and very friendly town of Invermere, British Columbia. I am very fortunate to have had so much support from an amazing family, and from so many wonderful friends here.

   Cerebral Palsy is a diverse ability caused from lack of oxygen  either at birth, or very shortly after. It has a very wide spectrum, like a lot of diverse abilities do, and, it  affects people in many different ways.  There are people with CP who walk very independently, with just a little limp, and there are others  who use wheelchairs full time, have very limited fine motor skills, and are non verbral. The severity of  CP depends how much oxegen the person was deprived of at birth. I have moderate CP.  Once, I went to an appointment at The Alberta Children's Hospital for one of many assesments, and the doctors there said I was right smack dab in the middle of the Cerebral Palsy severity scale(well, thtey probabnly said it more professionally than that). IThe older I get, the more I realize that. I am so fortunate to have so much mobility, and independence, and that I am in no pain. My Cerebral Palsy definetly comes with it's challenges, and sometimes I wish it didn't take so much work to do certain things, but, at the end of the day, I would not change anything. Cerebral Palsy has taught me a lot of important lessons, helped me make very special memories, and connections with others,

I wrote a blog years ago about what it was like to be a teenager with Cerebral Palsy, called "Kates World on Wheels" I recently decided to come back to blogging because I stopped going on Facebook, and I had a preety supportive fan base on there(lots of really supportive friends). With all the crazy things that have been going on in the world in the recent years, social media got pretty overwhelming for me, so I made the decision to stop  using it. That being said, exciting things still keep coming up in my life, and I want to be able to update friends and family, without getting caught up in all the Facebook hype. Hopefuilly, I will also be able to reach other people who don't know much about diverse abilities,  teach them something new, and inspire them to reach out to people in their communitieswho also have diverse abilities . 

About a month ago, a local videographer, Justin Woodman did a profile on me, as part of the series he was contracted to work on, called "Valley Profiles".  I am very grateful to him for capturing my story, and helping me spread what inclusion means to me.  Click on the link below, to view the video. 

I'm not sure how often I will blog, but I definetly plan to write about many of my adventure that may come up. I hope you enjoy my stories. Stay tuned for more blog posts to come! Thank you for your support!

Valley Profiles - Episode 003 (Kate Gibbs) - YouTube


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