Image: Instagram (@amandabisk).
After representing Australia in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Amanda Bisk came home with her eyes fixed on a bigger prize: the London Olympics.
The talented pole-vaulter, who was 25 at the time, had a few weeks off to recover from Delhi before her training resumed. Amanda was excited to get back into her routine, but over the course of a few weeks it became clear something had changed.
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“I started to realise I really wasn’t recovering from training and I was abnormally tired. I almost didn’t feel like going to training, which was not like me at all — I’m a very bubbly and energetic person and training was a massive part of my life. I loved it,” she recalls.
"As soon as I started feeling that I was like, 'That's not normal'. Because I'd been an elite athlete for such a long time it wasn't like I'd been over-training, it was just my normal routine, so it was a bit strange."
Amanda's doctor ran tests on her blood, iron levels and other markers, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Over a six-month period she visited other doctors and specialists to see if they could detect anything, but tests on her kidneys, liver and other body functions failed to produce an answer. Meanwhile, her symptoms — flu-like sensations, swollen glands, light-headedness, constant fatigue — worsened.