"How much time do you have," Teagan Micah said partly as a joke, partly with full seriousness.
The Matildas goalkeeper had just been asked how she was after a rollercoaster six months that culminated in her being selected for her second FIFA Women's World Cup.
"I'm obviously really happy and healthy now, in a World Cup squad and that's everything I worked towards in the last six months, but it's obviously been a really, really tough journey," Micah said.
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In June 2023, the goalkeeper revealed she had been sidelined for the previous six months dealing with the symptoms and aftereffects of a concussion sustained in December 2022.
Her absence for club and country over the course of half-a-year had been explained only in vague injury terms, something that was done by design as she admitted she wasn't ready to talk about the struggle she had endured.
The absence began on Dec. 7, 2022, in Malmo, where Rosengard, Micah's club, was hosting Benfica in a UEFA Women's Champions League group stage match.
The photo of the incident isn't pretty. Benfica striker Cloe Lacasse's boot is right on Micah's cheek, but concussion wasn't the Aussie's first thought.
"I genuinely thought she broke my face. I was like, 'Oh my god, she's broken my face,'" Micah recalled.
Micah was bracing for a fracture, and maybe a little concussion on the side. She went straight to hospital, underwent lots of scans, and was cleared of any fracture.
"You don't expect it to be a major concussion," she said.
"You think it's going to be a seven-day [absence] and then you jog on and play the next games. But it was such a hard hit, and I was really, really battling there for a couple months."
Micah first realised something wasn't right a week-and-a-half after the collision. Rosengard had a date with Barcelona at Camp Nou, in the final game of the Women's Champions League group stage, and Micah was pushing to play.
"I was still feeling crap, I would go out on a walk, and I'd feel dizzy."
Things didn't improve.
"Then I tried to do just 20 minutes on the bike, and I got off. If you looked at me, you'd think I'm drunk, and I was like, 'I'm not good.' This is a good three weeks later."
Micah experienced dizziness and headaches, and was bed-bound a lot of the time.
The concussion symptoms on their own would be enough to cause anyone to struggle. But they were not only keeping Micah from training and playing the game she loves, but also preventing her from living her 'normal life', and doing the most basic things like going for a walk or hanging out with friends. She was also far from home and dealing with a personal issue off the field.
"It took me to quite a dark place to be fair."
Micah was thinking, "Will I ever be normal again? Let alone play professional football?"
Her lowest point came in January 2023, when she returned to Rosengard after spending some time back in Australia during the Swedish offseason.
"At that moment I had ticked off in terms of my rehab journey just running and a little bit of handling, not really, but pretty much just doing running."
"I remember doing one run out on the field here and all of a sudden I was getting really, really painful migraines."
"I called up Brandi [Cole, the Matildas team doctor] and said, 'I feel like someone is just drilling into my head when I was doing these runs.' and I was like, it doesn't make sense because I could do them when I was at home a week-and-a-bit before in Brisbane."
Micah wasn't in a healthy spot mentally, and as a result wasn't taking the best care of herself.
"I was heading into a real deep depressive kind of state. And I remember after that run, I felt like absolute crap."
Rosengard were preparing to head to Spain for a preseason camp, but Micah could barely contemplate participating.
She retreated to the locker room while the team was still out on the park and called her best friend, fellow Matilda Charli Grant, who also plies her trade in Sweden, for Vittsjo about an hour from Malmo.
"I actually just called Charli first, I was bawling my eyes out. I was like, 'Charli, I need to go home. What am I doing here? This is horrible.' I can't add value to the team when I can't even run."
Micah then called the Matildas medical staff to let them know how she was feeling, and they told her to return home. Next came a conversation with Rosengard's sports manager.
"I just said, 'I really need to go home, I'm struggling on all fronts with my concussion.'"
The club told her to do what was best for her, and the next day she was on a flight home.
"I think both the club and the national team were very supportive of that because I was in such a dark place mentally. I was like, 'You know what? I can't go to Spain with the team, they're training every day. It just wasn't good for me.' And I came home for a good two-and-a-half weeks."
Her return to Brisbane meant she was already in Australia for the Cup of Nations in February, and she was named in the squad despite not being able to play. By being in camp, Micah was allowed to work even more closely with the medical team and be around her teammates.
The extent of her concussion and the affect it had had on her was kept under wraps to protect Micah.
"I didn't want to answer questions from the media because I was like, 'I don't know how I'm going to go.' I couldn't look forward and I knew I'd get bombarded with all these questions that [were] already overwhelming myself in a sense."
Micah credits that camp as being the big turning point in her recovery.
"I was working with Brandi and Tony Franken [the Matildas goalkeeping coach] and doing things like learning to dive again because I would get a violent shake in my head."
"So that was kind of the main turning point for me, in terms of mentality and being like, 'I can do this again.'"
The support of the national team medical staff, coaches, everyone at Rosengard, friends and family, made Micah's recovery possible. But throughout the past six months, Dr. Cole has been Micah's go-to.
Dr. Cole's experience working with rugby players outside her Matildas role meant she was well versed in dealing with concussions. Micah could turn to her for anything and get reassurance that whatever she was feeling was common during concussion recovery.
"She was so positive and even during the darkest days where I couldn't train and had really bad headaches, in bed all day, she was always there."
"I remember in April, she said 'I don't think you realise how bad you were and how far you've come.'"
Micah realised that Dr. Cole had been keeping things positive and not relaying unnecessary negativity to keep fear and doubt from consuming her.
"It always made me feel that there was light at the end of the tunnel."
The 25-year-old also had Grant close by in Sweden.
The Matildas full-back saw firsthand how deeply the concussion affected her Australia teammate, and how much the strain of being unable to do everyday things had affected Micah's mental health.
"She's such a social, bubbly person that I can't even quite comprehend how she got through that," Grant told ESPN.
"I had a small concussion recently, and I said to her, 'I don't even know how you did this for a couple months.'"
"But the way she's worked so hard to get back and stay positive and also, she'd come back and get some symptoms, and she's been so honest with that process and just trusting the process. It was very brave of her to do. I'm really proud of her."
After visiting a number of specialists, and working with officials for club and country, Micah returned to action in a Damallsvenskan match on Jun. 15.
She kept a clean sheet in a 5-0 victory, but her return subsequently hasn't been all smooth sailing.
"One of my first 90s back, I finished the game crying because I felt like s--- after, I had a mad headache, your brain is working so much more now than it ever was.
"The hardest thing for me was, if I told you to go out and yell for 90 minutes, you would get a headache for sure. And you're constantly yelling and tracking and it's non-stop as a keeper with... the mental game."
Micah again leaned on Dr. Cole asking: "Will I feel normal again when I'm playing? I feel good in training so how does it match?"
Dr. Cole reminded Micah that goalkeepers aren't afforded the luxury of easing back into game time... they just jump straight in.
Micah has continued to play full games, and she is managing the symptoms in and out of games with the help of Dr. Cole and her teammates. Sometimes it's as simple as taking a Panadol, pushing through, and chatting through it after the game. Other times, it requires limiting screen time, taking extra rest, or removing herself from situations that can drain her.
She's noticed things are getting better and improving on the pitch. That means also learning how to handle head knocks, which are part and parcel of the goalkeeper's life, post-concussion.
Micah has experienced a few hits since returning to action; one came from hitting a post, another from a striker's trailing leg.
"I'm thinking, 'Far out these bloody strikers, man, just jump over it," Micah smiled.
"But it is overwhelming if it's a hard knock because it's hard not to go back to that fearful state of, 'Oh s---, not again.' But you can't always live with fear. I wouldn't be enjoying the game if I was always worried about my head."
Micah feels she has got through the rough months and can now look forward. That includes moving to a new club after it was announced she was leaving Rosengard. But arguably more importantly than football, Micah feels better as a person.
"I feel more like myself and it's just giving me so much perspective on how important your everyday health is."
When the Matildas' World Cup squad was announced, the team released a video on social media of how the news was broken to players. Tony Gustavsson told Micah via a video call that she had been selected.
"Well, after this call maybe you pick up the phone and call Brandi, then, because you're in the World Cup roster, Teagan," the coach said.
Micah's reaction wasn't particularly loud, but it makes sense now knowing what she's been through.
We're not crying, you are 🥹
— CommBank Matildas (@TheMatildas) July 3, 2023
📹 Watch the moment our players found out they made the final squad for the #FIFAWWC #TilitsDone pic.twitter.com/Pp4umMCOyn
"I think [there was] a lot of relief in a sense because it was obviously like a ticking time bomb in a sense to get back. So, I was like, 'Oh, I've done it.'"
She's ready to fight for her spot in what she calls one of the strongest Matildas goalkeeping trios .
"Now, it's definitely I need to push and I want to be playing."
"But for so long, it was like Macca [Mackenzie Arnold] went in and did well. And I was like, 'I can't stress about that because I can't even complete a normal day.'"
"So it was a different mindset for a long time. I was like, 'It doesn't matter who gets in and if they do well or bad because I can't complete a normal day or normal training,' so I was like until I'm healthy and until I can tick off these things, I can't stress about any of that."
"Once I'd figured out that I just need to let that go, I think it made my journey a bit easier."
It will also mean continuing to work through residual symptoms.
"I still talk with Brandi all the time and I still talk with our sports psychologists about it."
"It's not done and dusted in that sense. But to get that call and get that confirmation was just, like, 'Oh, this is so nice that they've just believed in me the whole time to get back to playing.'"
"And honestly, I feel better than what I was even before the concussion, in a sense because now I'm playing with a whole new sense of gratefulness as well."