How dog helped save swimmer with serious illness
Kay Goulden, 25, has been walking two miles a day with therapy dog Hudson
- Published
A promising Derbyshire athlete who is walking again after a serious illness says her assistance dog helped save her.
As a teenager, Kay Goulden was a talented gymnast and national-level swimmer, training with the likes of Olympian Adam Peaty and Commonwealth and European medallists Imogen Clark and Abbie Wood.
A training injury developed into a serious condition which at one point left her unable to walk.
But with the help of her therapy dog, a basset hound named Hudson, Ms Goulden has walked two miles a day for an entire month to complete a 60-mile walking challenge to raise awareness of the condition.
Ms Goulden, 25, from Doveridge, developed a stress fracture in a rib during training when she was 13, which she initially dismissed as a stitch.
The injury damaged her spine and left her unable to walk and struggling to even swallow.
She said: “I couldn't swallow at one point, even my own saliva, so I went down to six stone.
“I didn't know what was going on.”
The illness developed into Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a little-known condition that affects the nervous system and causes seizures.
She wasn’t diagnosed until she was 18 and says for years her condition was dismissed as her “just being a hysterical teenager”.
She added: “I didn't get an official diagnosis. It does take two to four years minimum for anybody to get diagnosed.”
Hudson has helped Ms Goulden to find her feet again
As she comes from a dog-loving family, Ms Goulden decided to get a therapy dog just over a year ago.
She said: “He’s a massive help. Some days you don’t think you can get out of bed.
“Now I am a hundred to a thousand times better. You still struggle and have those days but we all do.
“There’s more to life, you don’t have to press pause, you can carry on.
“I started walking again, I got stable walking inside the house for five months and I’d only just got steady, but I decided to walk two miles a day for a month.
“Every step of the way was with Hudson, I wouldn’t have done it without him. It was Hudson’s challenge, I was just along for the ride.”
As well as her walking challenge for charity Mind UK, Kay has set up her own charity FND Hope and wants to raise awareness on behalf of other people with the condition.
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