<strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong> Wednesday <strong>November</strong> <strong>24</strong> <strong>2021</strong> 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 <strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong>. 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 <strong>Selwyn</strong> <strong>Times</strong> 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.
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