‘I had seizures but my horse sensed I had brain tumour before I did’
A woman has revealed she believes her brain tumour was detected by her horse.
Kelly Ann Alexander, 43, says horse Aliyana was the reason she felt compelled to go to the hospital to have tests.
She said that, after she began suffering seizures, Aliyana started to sniff the right side of her head. Kelly Ann went for tests which revealed a lowgrade brain tumour.
Although Mrs Alexander suffered a setback when her tumour returned following initial surgery to remove it, she says Aliyana is the “best therapy I could have”.
Mrs Alexander, from Blackburn, West Lothian, is working with Brain Tumour Research to raise awareness of Brain Tumour Awareness month in March.
The former HGV driver said: “My horse is the best therapy I could have. Along with my husband Kevin, she keeps me going.”
Mrs Alexander had just taken up her dream job as a groom in a professional yard in Aberdeenshire when she became ill in October 2015.
Weeks earlier she and Aliyana had competed in their first dressage competition together. She said: “Aliyana was a wedding present from Kevin.
“Within days of the dressage competition, I had my first seizure and then was having up to 14 or 15 a day, which were always preceded by a horrible metallic taste and smell.
“I was prescribed the antiepilepsy drug Keppra but was still backwards and forwards to the doctor. Kevin had been brilliant but needed to get back to work so I moved 200 miles to be with my parents in West Lothian.”
She added: “It was about five or six weeks before I next saw Aliyana, but when I did her reaction was incredible.
“She galloped over to me and immediately started to sniff the right side of my head where, as we now know, the tumour was growing.”
Brain tumour survivor
Eventually Mrs Alexander was admitted to St John’s Hospital in Livingston, where the oligodendroglioma brain tumour was diagnosed.
She underwent surgery but challenged the neurosurgeon when told she could be left unable to walk or talk, insisting that she needed to be strong enough to ride.
Mrs Alexander added: “Since my surgery I have suffered with left-sided weakness. But Aliyana amazingly has learnt that she now needs to walk on my left side, not on the right as she was used to.
“She has even worked out that if she wants a treat she needs to be near my left pocket.”
Mrs Alexander suffered a major setback following the operation, after contracting a serious infection. In 2017 a scan showed the tumour was back and she has undergone further treatment.
Joe Woollcott, community fundraising manager at Brain Tumour Research for Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: “Kelly Ann’s story remindsusthatbraintumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age.
“Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under the age of 40.”
“Aliyana has even worked out that if she wants a treat she needs to be near my left pocket”
KELLY ANN ALEXANDER