At 26, Gabrielle Ford, a nationally traveled speaker about bullying in high school, has finally left her home nest.

Ford, a young woman of convincing beauty who was diagnosed with Friedreich’s ataxia, a rare neuromuscular disease, when she was 12, moved a mile and a half from her courageous mother, her stepfather, her two sisters, and her beloved black and tan coonhound, Izzy, whose coincidental series of illnesses helped create an uncanny bond between dog and owner.