Selwyn Times: November 24, 2021

Selwyn Times Wednesday November 24 2021
10
OUR PEOPLE – KATE WILLIAMSON
Beating illness through tennis
Ladbrooks’ Kate
Williamson studied
criminal law, and
worked as a probation
officer and recruitment
agent. Now the 33-yearold
has returned to a
sporting passion of her
childhood to become
a professional tennis
coach, which has
helped her fight off
a rare disease. Susan
Sandys reports
What are the highs and lows
of being a professional tennis
coach?
I’m region coach for Ellesmere
Tennis Association, coaching the
rep teams within the Ellesmere
region. I’m also head coach of
Prebbleton Tennis Club, Lincoln
Tennis Club and Ladbrooks
Tennis Club. I definitely love
working for myself. But there’s
always nights when it’s freezing
cold in the middle of winter,
and it’s eight o’clock at night,
and you are thinking: ‘Office
job nine to five would be quite
good right now.’ I don’t see (my
partner) Julian until nine o’clock
most nights. Mostly I teach kids,
aged five to 18, but adults on a
private basis. It’s really full on,
I have a whole new respect for
teachers. It’s so rewarding at the
same time. If the kids weren’t
enjoying it, I wouldn’t do it. I am
now working alongside Tennis
NZ which is a role I am really
passionate about, as a coach
developer. I go around different
regions teaching other coaches
or volunteers how to coach.
How did you start playing
tennis?
My dad owns a motorcycle
company, so I grew up riding
motorbikes. My parents did not
play tennis, but they took me
along to a holiday Have A Go
session at Prebbleton when I
was eight. I wore completely non
tennis clothes, and I had a silly
old racket from The Warehouse,
which nowadays I would
cringe at. I was wearing a black
flowery skirt, probably not even
sneakers.
Your passion for tennis took
off from there?
I joined up to local tennis
training sessions at my school,
Ladbrooks primary. The first rep
team I ever made was the under
12 girls team for Ellesmere. I
kept playing for Ladbrooks until
I was 13 and then I got asked to
play in the Ellesmere senior A
grade competition, so that was
with all adults. I was only 13 and
I started playing in the top grade
you can play in in Ellesmere.
You must have been the
youngest there at that time?
Yes, some of my mixed double
partners were 50, 60 years old,
so I learned a lot from them. I
matured as a player, through
learning tactics and tennis
etiquette, that you perhaps miss
when you are only a junior player.
Did you continue playing
through high school?
I went to Lincoln High School,
which wasn’t a big tennis school.
But they had the year 9 tennis
cup, which I won, and then
eventually we did start a tennis
team. My best friend played
tennis as well, there’s a picture
of us in the Selwyn Times. We
played in the South Island
secondary schools tournament.
We qualified for that, it was kind
of the start of Lincoln getting
involved with tennis more.
What did you do when you
left school?
When I was 18 years old,
friends and parties became
more of a priority. I would
still play tennis, but I wouldn’t
train during the week. I went
to Canterbury uni, did a
double degree, a BA and law.
At university, tennis became
even less of a priority. Although
I still did play, and we played
a law exchange with Dunedin
university. I went up to
Auckland University for my
sixth and final year to do a
postgraduate honours degree
in criminology. After moving
back home to Ladbrooks in
2013, I got a job working for the
Department of Corrections, as
a probation officer, for about six
months.
That would have been an
interesting job?
It was a whole realisation for
me, that the world isn’t such a
pretty place in some areas. It was
a long way from the nice, happy
tennis clubs of Ellesmere. I gave
up the position to move to Perth,
to be with Julian, who worked
in the mining industry. He had
been flying back to Christchurch
for his one week in five to visit
me, it was quite the love story.
What did you do in Perth?
I ended up working in the oil
and gas industry in recruitment,
one of the biggest oil and gas
companies in the world, Brunel.
They were a huge company,
so that was a great two years.
Then one day the role actually
changed, it suddenly became
more about sales and having
to get the work rather than fill
the work. I decided I hated it, it
wasn’t as fun anymore, I handed
in my notice.
So you became unemployed?
When I quit, I decided: ‘Why
not be a yoga teacher?’ I trained as
a yoga teacher. At the same time,
I had joined the Royal King’s
Park Tennis Club in the city. So
I started playing tennis more
than I ever had. I made the top
women’s team at the club, we had
free coaching sessions, I started
working as a tennis coach. I also
YOUNG STARS: Williamson (right) and her best friend
Lauren Clegg appeared in the Selwyn Times when they
attended Lincoln High School.
PASSION:
Kate
Williamson
is in her
element on
the tennis
court.
PHOTO:
GEOFF SLOAN
trained and worked as a massage
therapist. I worked for myself
now, I was my own boss. We
moved back home to Ladbrooks
in 2016. I trained in tennis
coaching and am ITF qualified.
Do you still teach yoga?
I had to give up in 2019. I got
too busy in tennis, but I also got
diagnosed with a really serious
illness, Cushing’s Syndrome. So
I ended up with this rare disease,
which destroyed me. They think
that the tumour, which is what
I had on my adrenal gland, had
been growing since 2016. That
was when I actually randomly
put on 20kg in two months, and
was 80kg. Long story short, I
kept trying to lose the weight
and then two or three years went
on and I was just getting bigger
and bigger. I had insomnia, I had
acne, I had my hair falling out
and my blood pressure was 190. I
had to be kept in hospital until it
could be brought down. Instead
of producing, say, 400 millilitres
of cortisol, I was producing 3000.
That’s the adrenaline hormone,
so it feels like your body is a
constant state of stress. It was
this horrible, horrible disease.
At the end of 2019, I was getting
sicker, I got other people to cover
my tennis, my sister Beth was
also a tennis coach. Everyone
was amazing in the tennis
community, the support really
got me through.
How did you recover?
I saw an endocrinologist, went
on a surgery waiting list. In
March 2020, I got my adrenal
gland and my tumour removed.
Very luckily, it wasn’t cancerous;
you don’t know until it is taken
out. After the surgery, I produced
no cortisol. Even though you
have two adrenal glands, the
other one turned off, because my
right one had been producing so
much. So I went through a whole
period for 2020, from March to
October, being like a drug addict
coming off drugs (withdrawing
from high cortisol levels). I
couldn’t walk I couldn’t go to the
toilet, I would lie in bed shaking,
fevers, spewing. So I got put on
replacement steroids, but it still
wasn’t enough. I had moved
back in with mum and dad. That
whole period of recovery was
actually harder than having the
disease itself. I went through
extreme anxiety, depression,
which I had never had in my life.
Are you better now?
Eventually, I started coaching
again, at the end of 2020. I got
extreme joint pain and I still get
that, I kept fighting through.
I have slowly got better and
better. I have lost 25kg over the
past year. A couple of months
ago, I went to the hospital and
got given the all clear. So my
remaining adrenal gland has
started working again. I’m cured
from Cushing’s, but I still live
with the after effects. I am now
taking no medication, which is
massive, the anxiety has gone
the depression has gone, now
I can recognise myself again.
With Cushing’s, you not only put
on weight, but your whole face
blows up and you essentially lose
your eyes, your face become so
puffy. I don’t have that feeling of
shame and embarrassment with
how I look, it’s amazing how that
can change your confidence.
Did tennis help with your
recovery?
Yes, it gave me something to
strive for. I wanted to be back
full strength coaching, so I
worked lots in the gym. You get
a lot of muscle wastage, I lost all
my strength. I slowly worked on
building and building , so I can
run again, and run on a tennis
court and hit balls. I would get
out and practice doing those
things.
SURGERY: Last year in March, Williamson underwent
surgery to have an adrenal gland and tumour removed so
she could begin to recover from Cushing’s syndrome.