Andover ? Doctors didn’t expect Darren Lyon to survive after he was stricken with a rare systemic blood infection two years ago.

But although he still has a long way to go in his recovery, Lyon defied the odds and is back making a go of it at his auto shop near Andover.

“It’s a miracle he survived,” said Tom Moore, an infectious disease specialist at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. “The fact that he is functioning at his current level is unbelievable.”

Lyon, 36, is determined to keep on recovering from the near-fatal illness.

“I’m going to get my life back,” he said. “This time next year, I’ll be jogging.”

Lyon keeps busy with paperwork, phone calls, answering questions from customers, and supervising two employees who work on customer cars.

He still has limitations. It hurts him to stand, so he does most of his work from a wheelchair. He continues to work on his walking, and has bought a bike with an eye toward improving his leg strength.

His left arm, from which surgeons removed the biceps in an attempt to control the infection, is still weak. However, he can lift it to a table and use it to help stabilize things he’s working on.

“I’m finding that other muscles can be trained,” he said.

Moore said most patients who survive an infection as severe as Lyon’s ended up losing one or more of their limbs, and never regained full use of their arms or legs.

Although he had $30,000 in the bank, Lyon realized that money was being used up while he was hospitalized. The likelihood of months of rehabilitation and then a life of disability wasn’t acceptable to him.

“My business won’t be around if I’m gone months,” he told therapists at Via Christi Rehabilitation Center-Our Lady of Lourdes. “What do I have to do to get out of here?”

They told him he needed to be able to dress and feed himself, and get in and out of his wheelchair. Determined, he went home in two weeks, and two days later he was back in the shop at Lyon Automotive.

“I was lucky because my brother was out of work and he came up here and helped me get the shop going again,” Lyon said. “Then, I was able to hire a couple of young men who wanted to learn the business. I’ve been teaching them, and they’ve been my hands.”

And things are looking up for the auto shop business.

“This summer has been real busy,” Lyon said. “We can always use more customers, but things are going well.”

One very specific goal for Lyon is to be able to get back to the storage room on the second floor of his shop.

“Some friends wanted to build me an elevator lift, but I told them not to do that,” he said. “I’m going to be able to climb those stairs. Just like I’m going to jog and ski. I will get my life back.”