“All the pain just flushed back in,” she said. “I couldn’t stand up … I was fearful of sneezing at that point. I couldn’t bend forward to pick a basketball up.”
The FIBA World Cup medallist now says that the full spinal fusion and disc replacement last year was the best decision she’s ever made.
She said her “cocky bastard” of a surgeon assured her the prospects of competing again were good, but she was nervous about the invasive surgery which had a 3 to 4 per cent chance of permanently impairing her mobility.
“You just never know what to expect. You’re getting a certain vertebra fused so you can’t move that vertebra any more at all. It’s completely stuck in place, so it is scary,” she said.
Following the successful operation, Blicavs couldn’t bend or twist for three months, and could only sit or stand for half an hour at a time. She moved back in with her mum for a few weeks, who had to help her lift anything more than five kilograms.
“It was a lot of laying down,” Blicavs said. “I got really good at crossword puzzles and Sudokus.”
Sara Blicavs returned to the court for the Opals this week against the New Zealand Tall Ferns.Credit: Getty Images
She got a scholarship with the Victorian Institute of Sport, where she was taught to run and move again in ways that wouldn’t overextend her back. When the VIS athlete progressed to being able to do high knees, she thought it was the best moment of her life.
Blicavs said a personal VIS team gave her the opportunity to develop as an individual athlete for the first time.
“It was a really cool time to actually step away from training and playing with the team and just focusing on yourself individually and building your game up individually. I feel like I’ve actually improved a lot from where I was – not just with my body but even my skill level, too. It’s just given me so much passion for the future,” she said.
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“I feel like a tennis player where I’ve got my own little entourage, and bring my physio, bring my strength coach, here’s my running coach.”
She returned to the court for the first time in March for the Melbourne Tigers, almost a year to the day of her surgery, in a nostalgic return after playing juniors at the club.
As she made her comeback in Wednesday’s trans-Tasman series match, Blicavs takes nothing for granted.
“Just to be able to put the green and gold on again and be back in that team, I’ll never take that for granted,” she said. “I know I’m super lucky to even get the call-up.”
Blicavs said winning bronze in Tokyo had been an achievement, but she wasn’t done with the Olympics. Los Angeles in 2028 was now in her sights.
“I would love to be [in LA], but at the same time, I think what’s happened with my back has just made me realise that basketball’s just fun again.”
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