Owners of High Peak pet care business win lifetime achievement award amid two years of health drama

Kim and Neil Burton Hicks, the married couple behind Paws High Peak, were honoured at the national Animal Star Awards on Sunday, November 27 – an online celebration of remarkable stories from the past 12 months.

They were nominated by grateful clients who recognised the couple’s dedication during a period in which Kim came close to death and then began a long-term struggle with the effects of a liver transplant.

Kim, 41, said: “It’s difficult to put into words what it means to win. Neil was named as a top ten finalist in the dog trainer category too. We’re both thrilled.

“Once you’re nominated, the judges look at the business and everything you’re doing. We’ve always tried to do our bit for the local community. We collect donations every Christmas for local shelters and if anyone has any problem with their pets we’ll help however we can. This week we’re giving free transport to a lady whose dog has to go for an operation.

“When I was most poorly, all our clients were fantastic, dropping off meals for Neil and raising £17,000 in case I had to go private for my operation. Even now, people are texting every week to see if they can do anything to help us. So many have become friends more than clients, it feels like we have one massive family in New Mills.”

Their ordeal began in November 2020, on a day when Kim was working as usual on the grooming side of the business.

She said: “I just started feeling unwell and noticed that my eyes were a bit yellow so I rang NHS 111. They sent an ambulance out straight away and took me to Stepping Hill.

“From there I was rushed to the liver unit at St James’s Hospital in Leeds, where they told me my condition was not survivable. I didn’t automatically meet the criteria for the transplant list, so they told me to start putting my affairs in order.”

She added: “It came completely out of the blue. As a former dance and fitness instructor, I’d kept myself in good shape. It wasn’t caused by alcohol, I wasn’t overweight.

“Even after doing all the tests, the doctors couldn’t say for certain what had gone wrong. My body just suddenly started rejecting my own liver. They told me it had basically died that week.”

Thankfully, Kim’s doctors were able to negotiate a spot on the national transplant list. The bad news was an agonising three-month stay in hospital at the height of the pandemic.

She said: “It was the most horrifying experience of my life, and the transplant wasn’t the worst bit. It was being there all alone with no visitors allowed.

“Neil could come and wave through the doors but otherwise it was all Facebook messages and video calls. I was still trying to work on the business.”

After spending Christmas alone on a ward, on January 7, 2021, Kim was woken up at midnight and told that a matching liver had become available, then rushed into theatre for an 11-hour operation.

There is still no happy ending to the story though, as a few months later Kim learned that the transplant had only been partially successful. The new liver was showing signs of damage. She was placed back on the list to await a second transplant, and has been there for 550 days and counting.

She said: “The list doesn’t get shorter the way you might think. We’re constantly fluctuating up and down depending on how urgent patients are and lots of other things. None of us know when the call will come.

“I feel like I’ve aged from 39 to 72 in just two years. I was still dancing in shows before, now I’m walking with a cane. I’m on a lot of different medications every day and anything I eat feels like I a mouthful of oil, so I’m constantly sucking lollipops to get rid of the taste.

“The hospital has a Facebook page for people who have had transplants, so I know people who have been up and running 5Ks six months after their operation. I’m hoping that will be possible for me. The next liver could last 20 years. I’m just hoping to get back to normal life, doing things I used to. At the moment I can do very little.”

All this had an inevitable impact on the couple’s business, with Neil putting in extra hours while also serving as Kim’s primary carer at times.

She said: “I have tremors in my hands now, which isn’t good when you’re grooming dogs with scissors and clippers. So I’m looking after the day care and boarding while Neil runs the training academy and travels all over the place doing behavioural classes.

“We were both working flat out full-time before, but suddenly everything I was bringing in stopped and Neil had to keep going to cover the mortgage. All this has affected his mental health too, but his support has meant everything to me.”

Throughout all their troubles, Paws’ four-legged clients have done as much as their owners to help Kim and Neil.

Kim said: “Dogs are like an antidepressant in themselves. They all have different personalities, and we try to capture them all on social media, so all our clients know each other’s dogs and ask about them all the time.

“Everyone knows our elderly, blind pug, Murphy, and we had an 11-month old great Dane, Egor. He was supposed to get out of the house more, but he died suddenly from kidney failure in September. We got so much help from people then too. Like I say, it’s one massive family.”

To learn more about the business, see pawshighpeak.co.uk.

“In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a subscription or buying a paper. We stand together.” – Louise Cooper, editor.