Even with her four-year-old daughter in tow, Perth mum Karen Windsor decided she needed to find some time in her busy schedule to focus on her fitness.
After starting pilates, yoga, kick-boxing and even 10-minute at-home workouts, when Karen’s back began to ache she put it down to her new exercise regimen.
As the pain grew worse, her doctor prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and Karen also began taking sleeping tablets.
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Months and thousands of dollars spent on alternative therapies later, Karen discovered she had a 5cm tumour winding its way along her spine.
“(The doctors) thought it could have been growing for 10 to 15 years,” Karen tells 7Life.
“I have always had some sort of back pain for as long as I can remember.
“But this, it was only getting bigger, it was putting pressure on critical nerves … I needed surgery.”
Karen began to suspect her lower back and hip pain was much more than a simple exercise injury when a five-hour road trip left her in agony.
The then-35-year-old had kicked off a new health and fitness regimen in 2022, but soon recurring back and hip pain began interfering with her everyday activities.
When the pain first appeared, she assumed she had simply overworked the area while exercising and so applied an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory cream.
But as the pain persisted — and spread to her hips and glutes — she went to her GP.
“The pain came on really randomly,” Karen says.
“I couldn’t remember hurting it during a workout but I just thought I must have.
“But after a week it just wasn’t getting any better.”
Her GP prescribed anti-inflammatory medication but the pain only became worse, and Karen began taking sleeping tablets to help get through the night.
Then, Karen jumped in the passenger seat of a car for a five-hour road trip.
“It was excruciating,” Karen recalls.
“Every bump on the road, I was screaming.”
Now thinking her pain was more than just a workout injury, Karen went back to her GP who referred her to a physiotherapist.
But after 10 sessions of physiotherapy followed by acupuncture, chiropractor and massage visits, Karen was still in agony.
Her pain flared particularly when she was sitting, so she started using a stand-up desk at work and would only get in the car when absolutely necessary.
Then the pain began to creep down her left leg, and a desperate Karen eventually went back to her GP.
Four weeks, two MRIs and a CT scan on her hip and spine later, her doctor phoned Karen.
“They found a 5cm lesion on my spine,” Karen says.
“I finally had my answer, it was a moment of relief but at the same time …”
After the doctor broke the news, Karen drove to her mum’s house to pick up her daughter.
There, she says, she broke down in tears.
“Just having to tell someone out loud was overwhelming,” she says.
Specialist doctors promptly scheduled surgery to remove the tumour.
While they suspected the growth was benign, if left untreated it would continue to grow along Karen’s spine — putting pressure on her nerves and causing ongoing pain.
“I was scared because of the severity of the surgery,” Karen says, adding while the mass was growing along the outside of her spine, doctors also needed to go inside her spinal cavity to check the tumour had not encroached there.
“But it needed to be done.”
After surgeons successfully removed the tumour, Karen recalls opening her eyes in the recovery ward — pain-free for the first time in years.
“The surgery went exactly to plan and the tumour was sent off for testing and it was benign,” Karen says with a smile, adding she is now looking forward to living a pain-free life with her family.
“If you ever have something reoccurring, make sure it is investigated,” she says in a warning to other people experiencing pain.
“Don’t stop until you have your answer.”