Back in 2002, when I’d rolled my right ankle badly at training and unwittingly gone on to play on the fracture, I’d developed stress fractures in my fibula. The injury had continued to bother me, and now the ligaments in that ankle were shot.
I decided to play through it at the Olympics and in the WNBA finals, there was no time out for surgery, and in the end it was just unbearable. Honestly, you get used to pain, but with the constant flying and swelling of my ankle, my ligaments were so loose after the WNBA that I’d be walking down the street and my ankle would just go out from under me causing more damage each time.
Playing basketball, we’d all get lots of injuries that we considered pretty minor, a sprain or a pulled muscle or ligament. Even though they cause a lot of pain at the time, you don’t think it’s doing any harm, so you suck it up and play through it, and I got used to playing through most things. Most injuries do get better, but when they don’t and you’re not recovering and everything else starts to break down around it, it needs to be looked at, to be fixed, your body is trying to tell you something.
When I returned to Australia they found more damage than was initially thought, I’d fractured my ankle and I had bone spurs at the back of my ankle that were causing some trouble. At the age of 23, it could have been another career-ending injury. That November, I went in for a complete ankle reconstruction, an arthroscope and a posterior clearance—where they tried to remove all the bone chips—and I was told that I’d be off the court for three to four months. That put an end to returning to the Capitals that season, and I was contemplating taking a whole year off, spending time with my family and friends and not going back to Seattle. As I was off contract, there was no obligation to return.
Following The Athens Dream photo shoot, I’d been asked to do an American Sports Illustrated feature, a swimsuit shoot on a Miami beach. In January 2005, the middle of the American winter, Mum travelled with me to Miami. It was a free trip, they flew us business class and it was fun to be able to share that with her. We were there for three days, and although the shoot was for only one of those days it took all day, about seven hours.
They picked us up at six in the morning and took us to a mobile home on a beautiful secluded beach on the Florida Keys, and it was freezing. I kept thinking ‘What am I doing?’. But ultimately it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. I really enjoyed doing it, it was something different, there was no pressure, all I had to do was pose and have my photo taken in various swimsuits—that was until they asked me to take my bikini top off and cover my breasts with my forearms. I did it, and it was a lovely picture, although now I would say no! But back then, posing for that photo shoot was nothing like the pressure I felt going out on a basketball court in front of thousands of people.
I really didn’t take any notice of the publicity. In the US, the magazine was published not long after the shoot, but it came out later in Australia and the reaction at home was pretty good I think. If there was any negative feedback I wasn’t aware of it. It’s all part of my coping mechanism though—if I think something is controversial, I don’t read newspapers, if we lose games, I won’t go and read the match report. Self-Preservation 101.
We came back to Australia and I kept rehabilitating my ankle, going to the physio three times a week, doing cross-training, bike riding, and my ankle was slowly feeling better. Anne Donovan had been in touch, and the Storm wanted me back. They negotiated with my agent at the time and by then I really wanted to get back into my basketball after a few months off court. I signed up for a 34-game, three-month season, and flew over to the US to train for the season starting in May.
The Capitals also got in touch before I left. I’d missed the 2004/2005 season, but they wanted me to sign up for the 2005/2006 season, which I did, my ankle felt better and I’d always loved playing with the Capitals.
That year my great friend Suzy Batkovic was drafted number 22 in the WNBA, with Seattle picking her up. We’d played in the juniors together, and gone through the AIS together, played in the Gems and Opals, and taken silver together at Athens, and it was good to have her with us at the Storm. Tully had decided to stay in Australia to play with the Capitals that year.
2004 had been a pretty tough year, losing Nanna and then playing in Australia, Russia, Greece at the Olympics and in the US, before coming back to Australia for the ankle surgery. But in the 2005 WNBA season I had another type of health scare.
After a regular health check, I was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cervical cells. I made an appointment with a gynaecologist, I had to get another Pap smear to confirm that it was pre-cancer, and that diagnosis kind of scared the bejesus out of me. Sports injuries are one thing, but cancer was a whole new unknown area. I had to undergo a procedure to have it removed, and that whole process really scared me. It was one of those things that I hadn’t really wanted to share with anyone because I didn’t fully understand it myself, so I don’t think I coped well with it, but was glad Suzy was there, she was a great support. I think I missed a trip with the Storm because of the procedure, but thankfully was right after that.
After winning the WNBA finals the previous year, Seattle made it to the playoffs again in 2005, but we were beaten two games to one by Sheryl Swoopes’ team, the Houston Comets, in the first round, with Sheryl taking out the WNBA MVP award. That entire season the same hype was happening around me, with the possibility of my second MVP in 2005. I’d managed to gain the most top votes, but Sheryl scored more third and fourth votes, edging me out by the narrowest of margins, two votes, 327 to 325.
My ankle had been hurting again, even after the surgery, but as usual I’d been taking medication, and I’d played through the pain all season. I was back home getting ready to play with the Canberra Capitals again in the WNBL when I found out about missing out on the WNBA MVP by only two points. Apparently, I told my dad that I was a little disappointed, but I hadn’t had any real expectations of winning another title. Knowing I was that close to having another MVP in a league like that still blows me away, but I wasn’t upset. Sheryl is a great player, one of the best of all time, she was always lovely and kind to me, and she was also the best number two guard the women’s game had seen at that time, she was so deserving of that award.
I started back with the WNBL for the 2005/2006 season, and was looking forward to playing in Australia, but by October, after just two games, the dreaded shin splints returned. I was experiencing a sharp pain through my left shin, and my lower leg was swollen. I’d played through shin soreness for years, but now the pain had become unbearable. Stress fractures were such frustrating injuries for me because I’d always had shin pain, and had tried to manage them with ice and massage. But they’d become so bad that I couldn’t sleep at night, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs at home. I had scans and found new major stress fractures through my left tibia, a major weight-bearing bone in my lower leg, but I couldn’t actually pinpoint when the fracture had occurred. It hadn’t been an issue when I was playing, painkillers before every game always masked the worst of the pain. Initially I was told that I would be out of the game for months and would require a rod through my tibia, because the two cracks in my shin connected with each other. Naturally I was scared, but fortunately that wasn’t the case and I only required eight weeks out of the game with rehab and physio. I was told to rest, no jumping, no running.
There is nothing worse than being in top physical condition and feeling like you are playing the best you’ve ever played, and then having to sit on the bench. But I took the medical advice seriously, and stopped playing in the WNBL for nearly two months. It was just a really annoying cycle of injuries, for me, my teammates and my coaches.
My shoulder, my ankle and now the shin fracture—I of course thought the worst, what if one of these injuries actually ended my career? At 24, I realised I had no formal education, I had nothing to fall back on, and that thought really hit home. I needed a qualification, and while I was rehabilitating, I had time. I hadn’t been able to study well in high school, I was constantly and easily distracted, but I decided to enrol in a diploma of Business Management course by correspondence. Partway through I realised that I’d found a way of studying that worked for me, I could read through the books, concentrate, understand and get it done, by myself, in my own time, with no distractions. I proved to myself that I could study, and that was really satisfying.
The AIS were great. Instead of on-court training, I’d train in a pool, use an exercise bike, anything to reduce pressure on my shins. Thankfully it hadn’t been a career-ending injury, but it was still one that needed to be rehabilitated properly, and this time I was determined to do just that. I still wanted to play on for another eight, ten years or more, but to make that happen I realised I had to manage my body better.
I missed the Opals’ December training camp, and although I felt frustrated I was equally determined to make the 18th Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March 2006. Basketball isn’t played at every Commonwealth Games, it’s up to the discretion of the host country. Australia had successful men’s and women’s basketball teams, so of course the sport was included. I was going to play, I wanted to play for my country.
After taking 13 weeks off to rehabilitate my shins, and not being allowed to train more than 20 to 30 minutes a day, I returned to the Capitals in January for the last four games of the season. My first game back showed how unfit I actually was, with Graffy only putting me on to the court for 20 minutes of the total game, and we lost to the Sydney Flames 54–52. We won two of the next three games, and were placed third on the ladder behind Adelaide and the Dandenong Rangers as we headed into the finals. We managed to make the grand final by beating the Bulleen Boomers 67–62, and then Adelaide by two points in overtime, and were lined up to play Dandenong. It was a credit to the whole team that the Caps were into yet another WNBL championship. Katrina Hibbert took out the Season MVP, the Capitals won their fourth championship in seven years, beating Dandenong 68–55, and I was awarded the Finals MVP. Winning is the best cure for any injury.