Former Athlete Mum’s Only Cancer Symptom Was Feeling ‘Off’ While Swimming

Lindsey Cartwright realised something was seriously wrong in February 2025 when she emerged from the swimming pool feeling worse than she had before getting in—a sensation she had never experienced in her life.

The 48-year-old had been a competitive swimmer since childhood. She had represented South Africa and later moved to the United States on a university swimming scholarship.

Swimming remained central to Lindsey’s life decades later, and she was familiar with the way her body normally felt after time in the water. But that morning was different. She left the pool feeling completely drained.

She had already noticed pressure in her lower abdomen and had spent several days feeling unlike herself. At first, she wondered whether the discomfort could be linked to ageing or hormonal changes.

Lindsey was working full-time in a demanding Asia-Pacific corporate role, raising her teenage daughter and exercising regularly. She did not see herself as someone who was seriously ill.

“I’d probably been swimming for about 45 minutes of an hour-and-a-half session,” Lindsey, who lives in Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, told the Daily Mail.

“It was more when I got out. Normally, you feel so much better after doing exercise, and it was the opposite. I felt absolutely horrible. Just that wrecked feeling. I’d never felt like that in my life.”

The alarming episode prompted Lindsey to visit her GP. It marked the beginning of a confusing round of medical investigations that eventually revealed a 15cm tumour growing inside her abdomen.

Within weeks, she was preparing for major surgery without knowing what the mass was, whether it could be removed safely or what the diagnosis might mean for her future.

As they faced the uncertainty, Lindsey and her husband, Greg, tried to shield their 14-year-old daughter, Addison, from a frightening possibility they were not yet prepared to say aloud: cancer.

‘I knew something wasn’t right’

Before the diagnosis, Lindsey’s life was busy and demanding. She worked as chief of staff for Asia Pacific at a technology consulting company, coordinating regularly with colleagues in Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Addison was a competitive swimmer too, so Lindsey and Greg were often up soon after 4am to drive her to training. Lindsey continued swimming with a group of fellow parents and stayed active, even when she occasionally felt below par.

“I’ve always been fit and healthy,” she said.

Her familiarity with her own body was one reason the February swimming session left her so concerned.

“I think as women, we do tend to go, ‘Oh, is it sort of gynae-related?’ You sort of do that in your head,” she said.

After leaving the pool feeling unusually unwell, Lindsey booked an appointment with her GP and was referred for an ultrasound.

During the scan, she could tell from the sonographer’s reaction that something was not right. She was told a radiologist would assess the images and send a report to her GP that afternoon, and that she should expect a call.

But no call came. Lindsey later learned that the scan had not been flagged as urgent when the report reached her GP’s practice. Once the results were finally reviewed, she was instructed to go immediately to the emergency department for a CT scan.

Doctors found a 15cm tumour

Over the following two weeks, Lindsey underwent a PET scan, MRI, ultrasound, CT scan and blood tests as specialists tried to understand what was growing inside her. 

They knew the mass was enormous, measuring about 15cm by 9cm by 10cm, but its exact origin remained unclear.

‘After two weeks of all these tests, as a layperson, you do think that in the medical world they would have every picture of your body and they’d be able to tell you exactly what it was,’ Lindsey said.

‘You realise really quickly that it is just really fuzzy photographs of the inside of you.’

Her case was repeatedly discussed by multidisciplinary teams, and Lindsey met several specialists because doctors couldn’t determine exactly where the tumour was attached.

If it was growing from the back wall of her abdomen around important nerve and lymphatic structures, surgeons might not be able to safely remove it. There was also a possibility that removing the mass would require taking part of her stomach.

While Lindsey was having lunch for a friend’s birthday, one of her specialists called after another meeting about her case and told her the team had decided surgery offered the best chance of treating it – and had scheduled her in at 9am the next day.

Doctors prepared Lindsey for several possible outcomes. If surgeons discovered the tumour could not safely be removed, she had been warned chemotherapy and radiotherapy might instead be considered in an attempt to shrink it.

An intensive care bed was booked for four days because the medical team didn’t know how extensive the operation would be.

Fortunately, once surgeons began operating, they discovered the tumour had a defined margin around it that allowed them to remove the entire mass.

‘I feel so grateful and fortunate that my story is different to a lot of the stories that you hear about people going through cancer,’ she said.

‘The best option was that they were able to remove it.’

Specialist pathologists examined the tumour and her case returned to multidisciplinary discussions and then, four weeks later, doctors were finally able to identify it as a liposarcoma.

Doctors still don’t know what caused Lindsey’s cancer. What made the size of the tumour particularly startling was that Lindsey had undergone a CT scan for a kidney stone almost exactly 12 months earlier, when there had been no sign of the mass.

‘In terms of this very big tumour growing at a very rapid rate, that’s what had happened in a very short space of time,’ she said.

She didn’t tell her daughter she had cancer

While doctors were trying to understand Lindsey’s illness, she and Greg faced a separate question at home: how much should they tell Addison? 

Their daughter knew Lindsey was unwell and needed major abdominal surgery, but her parents deliberately avoided using the word cancer.

‘I think the narrative around cancer is a very negative one, and I think the stories that kids hear are people dying,’ Lindsey said.

‘My husband and I wanted to keep life as normal as possible for my daughter.’

More importantly, Lindsey herself couldn’t answer the questions she knew the word might prompt. Before surgery, she didn’t know whether doctors would be able to remove the tumour. Afterwards, she still had to wait weeks to learn exactly what it was.

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Trying to explain that uncertainty to her daughter when Lindsey herself didn’t know what would happen felt impossible.

‘I didn’t need her to be in a space worrying about me,’ she said.

Instead, Lindsey and Greg concentrated on maintaining as much normality as they could while she underwent surgery and began recovering. 

It was only much later, when Lindsey decided to speak publicly about her experience, that she realised she needed to have another conversation with Addison. 

She told her she had had cancer, but that the tumour had been removed and she no longer had cancer in her body.

The conversation was emotional, but Lindsey believes shielding Addison from the uncertainty had been the right decision for their family.

Lindsey’s husband gave her something to work towards

Although Lindsey was enormously relieved to have the tumour removed, returning to ordinary life after major abdominal surgery proved more complicated than she expected. 

She went back to the corporate career she loved and resumed family life, but found her perspective had shifted after weeks of not knowing what her future would look like.

‘I absolutely love what I do, but getting back to work just seemed so hard when you’re struggling with perspective,’ she said.

Around the time of her birthday, Greg, Lindsey’s husband and childhood sweetheart, decided she needed something significant to work towards. 

Knowing she had long wanted to visit Peru, he gave her a two-week trip that included a remote, nine-day trek through the Andes, reaching altitudes of 5,100 metres.

Lindsey had never been on a two-day hike and had never camped before.

‘I don’t do tents or little caravans,’ she joked.

But Greg knew her well enough to recognise that having a physical goal could help give shape to the months ahead.

‘He knew that I needed something to focus on that was really big and challenging, to make sure that I was focusing on myself, getting out and exercising, and really on that path of recovery,’ she said.

Lindsey began training with friends, gradually rebuilding her endurance after surgery.

‘I never doubted myself, but I suppose it was that fear factor that I didn’t even know if my body was going to be able to get to that kind of endurance after having the surgery that I’d had,’ she said.

Months later, she arrived in Peru.

On an acclimatisation hike before the main trek began, Lindsey reached the top of a mountain and unexpectedly burst into tears. 

Her friend Lisa, who was leading the trek, initially worried something was physically wrong. Instead, Lindsey was overwhelmed by the realisation her body had carried her there after everything it had been through.

‘I’ve done a lot of amazing things in my life,’ she said.

‘I’ve had my daughter. I’m married to my absolute childhood sweetheart, Greg. I’ve got an amazing relationship with my family. I’ve got all the swimming stuff that I’ve done, as well as what I’ve done in my career, which I’m really proud of.

‘But that day, standing on that mountain, I was just so incredibly proud of myself.’

Back home, Addison had watched the months of training that made the moment possible.

‘She would always say to me, “Mum, of everything that you’re doing – the training, the strength training, as well as the hiking that you’re doing – I’m so incredibly proud of you”,’ Lindsey said.

‘That’s certainly what I want my daughter to remember.’

‘Don’t ever stop dreaming of those big things’

Lindsey is now more deliberate about making time for her own health. She also thinks differently about what she wants Addison to take from the experience.

‘Don’t ever stop dreaming of those big things that almost scare you, that become life goals,’ she said.

At 10, growing up in South Africa, Lindsey dreamed of moving to America on a swimming scholarship. At 18, she achieved it.

Now, after an experience that changed her understanding of her health almost overnight, she hopes Addison remembers that frightening periods can sit alongside everything that comes afterwards.

‘On your worst day, when you’re feeling your absolute lowest, really know that it doesn’t last,’ Lindsey said.

‘You can almost never imagine in that moment the amazing things that you can accomplish in such a short space of time, both from a mental and physical strength side.’

Lindsey continues to undergo an MRI every six months to monitor for any sign of the cancer returning. The day she spoke about her experience marked her 18-month check-up.

‘I just feel so grateful to be here, to be able to tell my story,’ she said.

For Lindsey, the most important part of that story is what Addison saw after the months when her parents had tried so carefully to protect her from their uncertainty. 

Her daughter had watched Lindsey recover, rebuild her strength and eventually attempt something Lindsey herself hadn’t known her body would be capable of.

That, rather than the fear surrounding her diagnosis, is what Lindsey hopes will stay with her.