I hope folks have aread of this, resilience
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Three weeks, two hospitals, 14kg lost: Tiger opens up on nightmare pre-season
Grace Egan is back to her best now, but that seemed a remote prospect after she was struck by a sudden illness in March.
By Riley Beveridge, AFL Media
Nov 1, 2025, 10:39 am
As players across the AFLW competition set off for another gruelling pre-season earlier this year, running time trials and building their fitness, Richmond's Grace Egan couldn't even walk to the door of her hospital room without nearly blacking out.
Across a couple of months in March and April, Egan spent three weeks in two hospitals, lost 14kg of body weight, underwent surgery, had countless tubes inserted into her body, and dealt with multiple frustrating complications.
The nightmare started when Egan returned home from a visit to Western Australia, where she was helping her younger sister Holly settle into life at Fremantle after being recruited in the most recent Telstra AFLW Draft.
Egan felt a little bit of pain in her stomach. When it got bad enough to warrant a trip to St Vincent's hospital, it started to become a concern. But, for an otherwise fit and healthy 25-year-old, she couldn't have foreseen what would come next.
"I went downhill pretty fast," Egan tells AFL.com.au.
"Within a few hours of feeling unwell, I couldn't keep anything down. I was in a lot of pain and spewing a lot. I got put into St Vincent's where I spent the first four days in hospital, but they couldn't really tell me what was going on."
Egan recounts the ordeal in days. It was on day four when she was transferred to the Epworth for further tests. It was on day five when doctors decided to undergo emergency explorative surgery on her stomach to investigate the cause of her problems.
All the while, Egan couldn't eat without bringing it straight back up. She had a PICC line put into her arm to ensure vital nutrients would remain in her body, but she estimates she didn't consume any food for the best part of two weeks. She quickly became frail.
"I went from being fit and healthy to bedridden and not eating in days," Egan says.
"I was just really weak and fatigued. As far as I could get was walking to the door of my hospital room and back. It was pretty hard, that bit. I really just had no idea what I was in for.
"For the next five days in hospital, it was just small goals. I went from just trying to sit up in bed, to sitting up in bed and then walking to the door and back, then from walking to the door and back to trying to get to the hallway."
On day 10, doctors were confident the worst was over. The tubes that had been placed into Egan's stomach following surgery were finally removed, while the liquid nutrition being provided by the PICC line was replaced with banana smoothies.
After two whole weeks in hospital, she was finally discharged and returned home to Shepparton. "I was on house arrest," Egan jokes. "I say house arrest, because I still had my PICC line in and I wasn't allowed out for seven days after that."
But she didn't last much longer than the seven days on so-called 'house arrest'. The pain quickly returned. Only this time, it was much worse. She returned to the Epworth, where she was admitted immediately once again.
"This time, it was just way, way worse," Egan says.
"I just could not keep anything down and anything that I tried to eat would come straight back up. I was just weak and fatigued. I couldn't say awake, because if I was awake I would be in pain.
"I was pretty much just going through a cycle of trying to eat, then it would come back up, then I would have morphine, then I would go to sleep. I just had no weight left on me. I was 14kg down by this point. There was just nothing left of me."
Scar tissue from Egan's initial surgery had caused a blockage in her bowel. It meant that every time she tried to eat, it would have nowhere to go. Another bout of invasive surgery loomed, until the scar tissue finally released after another seven days in hospital.
"Those seven days were probably the hardest," she says.
Egan was finally discharged for good midway through April. But, in reality, her battle had only just begun. Now severely underweight, and still feeling the significant repercussions of her last month, the journey back to footy would be a difficult one.
"I was very scared of what the road back to a healthy version of myself was, let alone trying to play football," Egan says.
"I was also just confused. I found it really hard to walk or have a conversation without getting out of breath and feeling like I was going to blackout. I was very fragile. But I always wanted to come back and play football."
Egan eased back into life at Punt Road. Throughout almost the entirety of her pre-season, she arrived late, left early, and was excused from sitting through long meetings as she came to terms with building her immune system back from the ground up.
"I needed to teach myself how to eat meals again," Egan says.
"Because I was very under-fuelled, it was causing the blackouts and stuff like that. That was another thing. I was trying to fuel my body again and trying to get that energy back, but without overdoing it as well. It was just day by day. It was very difficult."
The saga would hit Egan in other ways, as well. Having never suffered a muscle injury through the first 57 games of her career, the midfielder was suddenly being struck by tears and strains almost every second week.
At first, it was a torn right quad in her return to pre-season training. Then, it was a torn left quad as she built towards practice games. She's since suffered multiple adductor injuries during the 2025 campaign, causing her to miss more games.
"It has 100 per cent impacted my season," Egan says.
"My body has always been very strong. There was nothing more I could have done to make sure I was prepped for football. But, because I needed to build that muscle so fast to even play, it just wasn't recovering as it would have normally.
"As much as I tried my hardest, doing all the recovery and eating all the food and sleeping as much as possible, I still had those issues. That's something I've found the hardest this season.
"I've always been a very consistent, reliable footballer. This is the first time that my body has been the thing to give way on me. It has made everything very hard to cope with. It takes a toll on you."
Remarkably, Egan returned for round one. Despite being limited to just 50 per cent game time, it was an achievement that led to immense and deserved pride. But, perhaps typical of her year, salt was about to be rubbed into the wound.
A severely lacerated lip, sustained in a head clash with Western Bulldogs midfielder Jess Fitzgerald in round two, would require plastic surgery and another stint on the sidelines. It was one more frustrating blow to add to the collection.
But, finally back on the field consistently now, Egan is feeling herself again. She had 28 disposals, 14 contested possessions and six clearances against Fremantle last weekend, having won 20-plus touches in four of her last five games.
"My first game back, that was a struggle in itself," Egan says.
"It took so many games to get back into it. Because the season is so short, and with the lip injury as well, it did not help me at all. It just took me back to the start. But I feel like, now that I'm fully recovered, I know that I'm fine.
"Being able to run out games, get the ball and be physical and feel strong … in the last four games, I've definitely felt that way. I feel like I'm back to my best now and I feel myself again."
https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/1924468/three-weeks-two-hospitals-14kg-lost-tiger-opens-up-on-nightmare-pre-season
