When Palace faced London City in the Women’s Championship in November 2019, an incident happened which ultimately saved Goddard’s life.
“I went to receive the ball from a throw-in and I think her forearm hit me in the back of the head or the neck and I was unconscious for a few seconds.”
She struggled with a small lingering headache following the concussion and eventually got it checked out in January 2020.
The scan showed no lasting effects of the knock to her head, but it did show she had a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) – a tangle of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins.
Another scan followed in March, but she wasn’t too worried by the results. It wasn’t until she had a hospital appointment in September – and was told the AVM had caused a brain aneurysm that required surgery – that she realised the seriousness of the situation.
“They said it would burst at some point in my lifetime,” she said.
“They couldn’t say if it would be tomorrow or in 20 years, but that I needed treatment. They said it would be either fatal or that it would cause a life-changing disability.”
It was a condition she could have had from birth, but in many people an AVM doesn’t cause any symptoms unless it ruptures and causes bleeding.
Goddard described receiving the news as “like what you see in the movies”.
She added: “They said it could be fatal and everything froze. They carried on talking and I couldn’t hear them. I was in shock. I’m an athlete and the possibility of not being able to move or something being fatal, it was scary.”
Her operation was scheduled for July 2021 and she tried to keep playing in the meantime – although she barely featured for Palace and left the club in May.
During what would have been an otherwise successful surgery to suppress the aneurysm, the unthinkable happened and Goddard suffered a stroke.
“I woke up and I couldn’t move my left side, I was paralysed,” she said.
“I couldn’t talk, my face had dropped, my arm couldn’t do the most basic of movements. They told me something was wrong but I would have never guessed a stroke. It was the worst thing other than dying that could have happened.”
