Victoria Carrington seemed to have her life plan figured out well before many of her peers had even chosen a direction.
Drawn to the sea from a young age, she poured her energy into marine biology and statistics, securing a string of scholarships and eventually turning her master’s studies into a PhD pathway.
Her days were packed with tutoring undergraduates, working in labs until the early hours and heading out on fisheries research vessels, all with the goal of shaping a future in fisheries management and safeguarding Australia’s marine environments.
‘I was extremely dedicated,’ Victoria tells the Daily Mail. ‘I was working 80-hour weeks because I loved what I was studying.’
Then, in December 2018, the ambitious future she had spent years building was thrown into uncertainty after a university Christmas party, when what began as an innocent piggyback ride ended with her falling and striking her head on the road.
Now 29, Victoria’s daily reality is far removed from the demanding academic and ocean-focused career she once imagined, with much of her time spent at home carefully managing limited reserves of energy.
She says even basic tasks can be overwhelming, explaining that she may shower only once a week because it drains her so severely, while walking can feel as though she is putting weight on broken ankles.
Her long-held hope of diving on the Great Barrier Reef, once a natural part of the future she pictured, may now remain out of reach.
Before she got sick, Victoria Carrington (pictured) studied marine biology and was hoping to have a career in fisheries management
The concussion that never went away
The accident didn’t seem life-changing at the time.
Victoria was in her early 20s when she attended a university Christmas party in 2018. After accepting a piggyback ride from a friend who had also been drinking, she was dropped onto the road, suffering what doctors diagnosed as a concussion.
At first, her symptoms appeared relatively straightforward. She battled headaches, nausea, dizziness and overwhelming fatigue before taking two weeks off work to recover. When she returned to her job working on boats, however, she quickly realised something wasn’t right.
‘I got off the boat after three hours and just knew,’ she says. ‘I felt sick. I needed to lie down.’
Doctors referred her to a concussion clinic, where she was advised to begin gentle exercise, including swimming. But just a month after the original fall, she struck her head again while doing backstroke in a pool, instantly developing a migraine before a wave of pins and needles spread through her entire body.
Alarmed, Victoria went to the emergency department. After hours of waiting, she says doctors ruled out a brain bleed and attributed her symptoms to the concussion, sending her home with the expectation they would settle over time.
Instead, they marked the beginning of a health battle that would only become more complicated.
After suffering a concussion following an ill-advised piggyback ride, Victoria began to develop unexplained symptoms
Five years searching for answers
In the months that followed, Victoria’s symptoms continued to grow. What began as headaches and dizziness became aching muscles and painful joints. Bright lights made her eyes burn. Noise became overwhelming. Migraines, nausea, gut problems and poor sleep became part of everyday life, while doctors continued to treat her as someone recovering from post-concussion syndrome.
Over the next five years, Victoria says she was referred from one specialist to another while her condition continued to deteriorate.
Perhaps the most unsettling part was how normal the pain became.
‘It genuinely took me four years to realise I was in constant pain,’ she says. ‘You get so used to it that your brain filters it out.’
Convinced there had to be another explanation, Victoria researched and learned about fibromyalgia herself.
Trained in research, she completed the online diagnostic assessment and returned to her doctor asking whether it fit what she had been experiencing.
Victoria was diagnosed with fibromyalgia more than five years after her symptoms began. There is no cure
Victoria was told that there was little point pursuing a diagnosis because there was no cure.
But for her, simply having a name for what she had been living with was its own kind of relief and motivated her search for more definite answers.
After spending thousands of dollars on medical specialists, Victoria was finally officially diagnosed with fibromyalgia more than five years after her symptoms began.
Living in constant pain
These days, Victoria measures her world differently.
A shower can take so much out of her that she often manages just one a week, depending on how much energy she has left after medical appointments. Most days are spent in the same chair, crocheting, playing Animal Crossing or watching television, trying to distract herself from pain that she says never truly goes away.
‘I don’t think there is a single place in my body where I don’t have pain now,’ she says.
She describes a constant tingling and burning sensation across her skin, while severe muscle aches, joint pain and scoliosis trigger sharp nerve sensations. Migraines and stomach pain regularly leave her bedridden, and she says even walking short distances can feel as though she’s ‘walking on broken ankles’.
Victoria’s condition makes her sensitive to noise, light and even changes in temperature. She is unable to work and only showers once a week because the process is so exhausting
Her nervous system has become so sensitive that everyday things most people barely notice can trigger symptoms.
Bright lights make her eyes burn. Changes in temperature or air pressure can leave her dizzy, nauseous or feeling as though her body is being squeezed. Even making simple decisions can become mentally exhausting.
The hardest part, she says, isn’t always the pain itself. It’s everything the pain has taken away.
The woman who once thrived on long days in university laboratories now finds herself carefully rationing her energy.
The life she never got to live
Victoria had always imagined sacrificing her 20s to education. She never took a gap year; instead, she went straight from school to university, then from an undergraduate degree into a master’s before upgrading to a PhD. She pictured long days in the field, a career in marine science and a future built around curiosity and discovery.
Instead, it slowly slipped away.
The fluorescent lights at university triggered headaches and migraines, while the workload and constant stress became impossible for her body to tolerate.
Eventually, she was forced to abandon her PhD, walking away not only from the career she had spent years building towards but also the academic community that had become her world.
As her health declined, so did her independence.
She says she now needs help with everyday tasks many people never think twice about, from making her bed and cooking meals to getting dressed or showering. Even using a computer for long periods has become difficult.
Despite receiving the disability pension, Victoria rejects the idea that life without work is somehow easier.
‘I miss having a purpose,’ she says. ‘I’d do anything to be able to work again.’
For someone who once thrived on 80-hour weeks, she says the hardest part isn’t having less to do. It’s no longer being able to contribute in the way she always imagined she would.
Running out of options
Over the past seven years, Victoria says she has done everything she has been asked to do.
She estimates she has spent years attending two or three medical appointments a week, seeing specialists, physiotherapists, osteopaths and pain clinics while trialling countless medications and therapies in the hope of finding lasting relief.
The financial cost has been just as relentless.
Victoria says she spends around $1,400 of her $2,600 monthly disability pension on medication alone, with her parents and siblings helping to cover treatment costs and everyday expenses when they can.
One appointment still stands out.
Victoria recalls arriving at a pain clinic in such severe pain that a nurse found her struggling to walk and wheeled her into her consultation. She says she was later discharged because attending appointments was causing her too much distress.
Adding to her frustration, Victoria’s application for NDIS support was unsuccessful. She says fibromyalgia was not accepted as the basis for funding.
‘I just felt like my pain was so unimportant to the world,’ she says. ‘It made me feel like I was nothing.’
A chance to hope again
By early this year, Victoria says she had reached a point where she felt she had exhausted every option available to her in Australia.
She began researching overseas clinics herself, looking for somewhere that could offer the kind of coordinated care she couldn’t find at home. Her search led her to the BDMS Wellness Clinic in Bangkok.
What appealed most was not the promise of a cure, she says, but the opportunity to access multiple treatments in one place. Instead of travelling between appointments, which she says often leaves her physically and emotionally exhausted, consultations, physiotherapy and other therapies can all be coordinated on the one site.
Victoria knows there are no guarantees.
‘I don’t expect a miracle,’ she says. ‘I’d just like to get to a point where I can cook for myself, make my bed, shower every day and think about working again.’
Unable to afford the program herself, she launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the cost of the trip and treatment.
As she prepares to leave for Bangkok, she admits she’s leaving with equal parts hope and fear. Hope that the program might ease some of her symptoms, and fear that after seven years of searching, this could be another dead end.
For now, though, she says the trip has given her something she hadn’t felt in a long time: hope.
The smallest dreams
Victoria knows Thailand cannot give her back the years she has lost. What she hopes it might return are the things most people rarely think about.
‘I’d like to be able to paint. I’d like to have coffee in a coffee shop. I’d like to be able to cook for myself, make my bed and get dressed without help,’ she says.
Perhaps most of all, she’d like to imagine a future that stretches beyond the next medical appointment.
