It felt like a pinched nerve.
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Nothing that couldn't be solved with a hot bath and a bit of rest.
But that dull pain in the base of Nikki Duke's back two years ago set her life on an unalterable trajectory.
"I jarred my back and then developed serious sciatic pain and then it progressively got worse in two days to the point I could not walk and required an ambulance," Ms Duke recalls.
The pain began in September 2018, while Ms Duke and her eldest son, Jesse were returning from an athletics carnival in Sydney.
Jesse had torn his tendon on his hip and needed hospitalisation for a night. At the time, Ms Duke had had a small operation for her Achilles heal after an injury on the netball court.
"I was on crutches at the time and I couldn't even look after Jesse," she said.
"My lovely friend who we went with us, Liz, she drove us back home," she said.
But that was just the beginning of the unfolding ordeal as during the journey home, the pain began.
"I just thought I've pinched something. I'll go to the hospital, get some pain relief, see a chiropractor and I'll be right. But that was the start of a 14-month stint in hospital," Ms Duke said.
When the ambulance arrived at their Gregadoo property, Ms Duke, still believing the pain was no great deal, tried to console her then eight-year-old twins.
"[Xander] stood there and he was crying asking me, 'are you going to die, mum'. I said, 'no, I'll be home tonight or tomorrow'. But it was 14 months," she said.
Originally, doctors said that Ms Duke would be able to walk again, but that she may never be as strong as she once was.
"So I was doing all my rehab and having transfusions," she said.
"I was determined to show everyone that I would walk again. This would not be the end."
Just two months after arriving in hospital, an unexpected setback forced Ms Duke's health to decline, placing her firmly at death's door.
"I picked up a staph infection and then went into septic shock which caused a couple of mild heart attacks and a major stroke," she said.
"Then I had two weeks in intensive care and was intubated at Wagga Base. I had no idea what was going on at that stage."
Unbeknownst to her at the time when lying unconscious in her hospital bed, her family were at home preparing for the worst.
"From what I've been told the doctors had said to my family 'look Nikki is a very sick girl, we don't know if she'll pull through this'," she said.
"They were told to get all the family together and say goodbye. That upset my sisters, my mother, my father."
Lying in her hospital bed with a high fever and inability to speak or move, Ms Duke recalls that the nurses on the ward "were absolute angels".
"I was overheating ridiculously and then all of a sudden these beautiful nurses would roll me over and pack me in ice-packs," she said.
"I couldn't speak. I couldn't communicate but they were aware of what I needed and that I couldn't cope."
Pulling through the worst of it, Ms Duke was once again dealt a harsh blow when her father passed away after a short battle with his declining health. At the same time, her much-beloved family horse died unexpectedly too.
She describes hearing of her father's death as "another punch" to her and her family.
After the fever disappeared, but while she was still intubated, Ms Duke faced another complication.
"The doctors were asking me to move my limbs, my hands. They kept saying, 'that's good now do your left side', and I thought I was," she said.
"It wasn't until a little bit after that I was told I'd had a stroke and I was paralysed on the whole left side of my body. I couldn't move even a finger."
Transferred to St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Ms Duke oscillated quickly from recovering to struggling again.
It was here she was diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, a condition that affects her brain and nervous system, causing paralysis.
"They say I will always have it, but I can learn to manage it," she said.
"There's scar tissue in my brain and spinal cord. It will always be there, but hopefully, I can make a bit of a recovery."
Now, having just passed the two-year mark from when it all began unfolding, Ms Duke has defied all medical expectations toward her recovery.
She is now learning to walk again using a frame and has hopes to soon be able to drive a modified car.
"The rehab staff at Wagga Base have been excellent, I've gotten to know them well over the last year," she said.
"I go to Synergy [in Wagga] once a week, and they say I am doing well.
"My motivation has been my children. I needed to get home to be with my babies and that's kept me going."
Even with her strength of resolve and determination to fight, everyday circumstances have become much harder for Ms Duke.
"Until you're in the situation you don't realise how tricky simple things are," she said.
"Just after I came out of hospital, I booked us all in for a haircut. But I couldn't get into the hairdressers because it was an older-style salon with a big step I couldn't get up in my wheelchair.
"I'd been there before [the illness], but I didn't even think about it."
Unable to have her haircut on that day, her hairdresser, Kim Frazier made the trip down to the hospital to fulfil the appointment.
"You'd need a whole page for me to thank everyone who has helped me," Ms Duke said.
For generations, Ms Duke's family have lived on the same 11-acre property just outside of Wagga.
Returning to the home and the memories of riding horses, motorbiking and climbing trees as a child has been a challenge.
The terrain of the property is also not conducive to life in a wheelchair.
So, Ms Duke was aided by friend Anna Sutcliffe and her church family at Wagga Baptist in wheelchair-proofing her life.
"There was a few working bees and 40 people came, friends and family members," she said.
"My friend since birth, Jillian Hebels, she organised one. It was amazing. I've had really good support, I've been in people's prayers. They call me, they visit me, it's been incredible."
With so much support, Ms Duke is confident "God will do His miracles in His perfect timing", but the day-to-day has been difficult on her family.
"I felt I had ripped them [my children] off from the lifestyle we had been living which was wonderful and active," she said.
"Can we ever return to that? That's the question. We're planning to but we'll have to modify it."
A kayaking and bushwalking enthusiast, Ms Duke is hoping to return to her training. In years to come, she even plans to walk the Kokoda Track with her children.
During the first year of her recovery, her colleagues at TAFE NSW donated a "massive Christmas hamper" of presents and food for the family.
"They just acknowledged I couldn't get out and get the shopping done. It was massive and so supportive," Ms Duke said.
About the same time, long-term friends Bec and Mark Crittenden started a crowdfunder that Ms Duke describes as a "constant and unceasing blessing".
"The generosity was enormous, people acknowledged that we would need modifications to our lives," she said.
Though unexpected and challenging, Ms Duke's health journey has taught her many lessons.
"I used to be the kind of person who would be in control and capable, but this has forced me to take help, and not be proud," Ms Duke said.
"I've learned that people offer because they want to help. People all over the world have wanted to help me, some are strangers. Their generosity has touched me."