Before Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard was a presence for Perth Lynx with her athletic 191cm frame she was sliding around the house in socks because walking was agonisingly painful.
Just a few years ago she was swollen, in agony, and everyday tasks like sitting down on a chair or walking up stairs took a physical toll.
After countless appointments, scans, tests and trials a Rheumatologist diagnosed her, at 21 years of age, with arthritis in both ankles and later her right knee. Fast forward to today and Clinch Hoycard takes six tablets daily, a higher-dose medication each Monday and complements it with a range of holistic and naturopathic treatments to ensure she's pain free and thriving on and off the court.
Now 25, Clinch Hoycard is armed with knowledge, resources and support to manage the condition which affects 3.6 million Australians, but it wasn't always the case.
"When weird things like this happen, it sucks that you have to be such a big advocate for yourself because doctors will say 'you're fine, it's this' but nobody knows your body better than you do," clinch Hoycard told ESPN.
"And that was the most frustrating thing when I was seeking a diagnosis, being told it wasn't arthritis because I was too young. I hate to think how much my parents and I spent trying to figure out what it was. You have to trust yourself and your body and if something isn't right keep pushing until you get an answer."
It was during Covid in 2020 when Clinch Hoycard was first troubled by constant swelling and pain in her ankles.
With the roads shut between her Perth base and the mining hub of Kalgoorlie where she was born and raised, she'd express her concern and pain to her mother over the phone.
"It was in winter and the cold makes you stiffer. I'd wake up and hardly be able to move so I'd wear socks and slide around the house until I'd loosen up," she recalled.
"Because it was my ankles I lost all mobility and didn't realise how much I use them. Even sitting down in a chair was hard. Regular things, like sit ups where you put your feet flat on the ground, I'd have to be up on my heels because I couldn't bend my ankles. I had to change how I walked up and down stairs."
A course of steroids followed by medication changed the game, she dropped a stack of weight as the swelling and fluid dissipated.
"Literally within two days I was sprinting and running, I could walk normally and play basketball," she said.
The condition also changed Clinch Hoycard's game.
"I was an inside player but I had to change my game because every time I went inside my ankles were so weak and sore I'd step on people's feet.
"I'd be in too much pain so I avoided the key way."
That was on the eve of her WNBL debut in 2020 when a hub season was played in north Queensland because of the pandemic.
The following season saw Perth contest the 2021-22 grand final series but fall short and the diagnosis that arthritis has spread to her knee.
"I'm lucky WNBL is a summer sport because even though I'm on medication and 10 times better than I would be without it, winter, even in Perth, is hard and I seize up."
And while a diagnosis has brought clarity, there are still unknowns.
"It annoys me in a way because I'm an elite athlete and I've grown up always looking after my body, eating well, exercising and working hard and it's like 'why the hell has it happened to me?'
"My dad played footy and struggled with joint issues so it could be related to that. I got really sick in Bali once and there was talk maybe I got a parasite which attacked my immune system or that because I'm an elite athlete it just goes to the joints you use the most.
"They are all theories really, nobody knows why I got it."
A holistic approach, and the guidance of a naturopath, has been equally as important as medication.
"I do a lot of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy where I wear a mask in an altitude chamber and that aids my recovery. Red light therapy is really big as well for pain and inflammation. For my birthday my mum got me a red-light panel, so I've got my own little recovery centre set up at home," the forward said.
"It makes a huge difference. I think I'd be fine just on the medication without the extra holistic stuff but being on that medication puts other things out of whack, so I think it's good to have recovery treatments that make everything feel a lot better."
Young, fit and a professional athlete at the top of her game, Clinch Hoycard doesn't match long-held perceptions of arthritis sufferers.
"The perception definitely is that it's what old people get, and I have the piss taken out of me all the time," she laughed.
"I think the hardest thing is people will look at you, and unless they can see the swelling say 'there's nothing wrong with you, you're fine'. Even when you get a scan or an MRI done, either swelling or nothing shows up and it's hard to explain the pain you're in.
"When someone does their ACL, they have a scan, it shows up on the scan, there's a set process, you have surgery and start rehab, but this is something that just hangs around and unless you tell people it's not something they see.
"I know older people who have arthritis but didn't know any other athletes or young people who have it and a female doctor told me she treats a lot of female athletes with it, we just don't hear about it."
Clinch Hoycard is changing that.