Just five days before Christmas in 2025, Montana Beruldsen was lying in a hospital bed.

It wasn't for a routine off-season surgery, or to repair a broken bone, or damage due to the nature of Australian Rules Football.

Instead, at the peak of her fitness and AFLW career, the then 26-year-old footballer was in for the fight of her life.

It all began following a post-season function in late 2025, when the winger coughed up blood at home.

"It was very unexpected. At the end of the [2025] season, we all went out to have drinks. I ended up waking up with a really sore chest and coughing up a bit of blood," Beruldsen told Richmond Media.

"I ended up just having the flu. I went to the doctor because I'd also torn my calf two weeks prior to getting sick. The doctor was like, 'we probably need to go get a scan to make sure you don't have a blood clot on your chest'. I'm thinking, 'that's a bit scary, but no worries'.

"I go and have the scan. Five o'clock that afternoon, the doctor calls me up and goes, 'so you don't have a blood clot, but we've found a large mass in your chest'.

"You can imagine your reaction when you get news like that. It's worse-case scenario, thinking, 'this stuff doesn't happen to me, what's going on?'. What can you do at that moment?"

But the answers she was hoping for didn't come quickly. In fact, the clarification she was seeking wasn't coming for quite some time.

"We found out in time that it was something that had to be removed. We still didn't know if it was cancerous or whether it was benign. It was large in the middle of my chest, pressing up against my heart and a lung," she said.

"The best thing to do was get it removed. I was in a whole other world from there. I'm like, 'this is not what I was expecting', no one expects to get news like that."

Beruldsen was diagnosed with a mediastinal mass in the middle of her chest, but serious complications would soon ensue during the surgery.

"They estimated that it was eight by 10 centimetres. It was pretty big, sitting in between my heart and my lung, pressing up against those two organs," she said.

"Going into the surgery, we thought it was one mass, but we found two [masses]. There was one right in the middle of my chest, then one up where my clavicle is. It was wrapped around a nerve.

"We thought it would be a one or two-hour surgery, and we'd be on our way. The surgery ended up being six hours, and it was a lot more complicated than what we thought."

Although Beruldsen was facing a serious health challenge she never expected, which set her back severely, the 26-gamer admitted she didn't understand the weight of the scenario, especially in the lead-up to surgery.

Her focus was on returning for an uninterrupted crack at pre-season.

"All I'm thinking about is, 'how am I going to rehab my calf when I'm in hospital and can't do anything?'. I wanted to get the surgery done as soon as I could. I wanted to get back and train for footy. That was my priority," she said.

"[In December] they called up and said, 'yep, we can book you in early January [for surgery]'. I was thinking, 'no way. I've got a whole pre-season I need to get fit for and get my body right for'.

"I ended up getting surgery on the 20th of December. I thought I'd get the surgery and be out of hospital in a couple of days, no worries. It didn't exactly go that way, and I was in hospital for two weeks, waiting for my lung to re-expand."

The setbacks would only get more challenging post-surgery.

"I remember being in hospital, asking, 'how long am I here for?'. It was always, 'we just have to wait for your lung to get better'," Beruldsen said.

"That recovery process, there was not really any timeline. It was probably more the recovery from the lung being deflated [that set me back]. We had to drain the fluid from the lungs, and that was taking a very long time.

"It wasn't like a torn muscle where you know exactly how long you have to come back. It was really challenging from the perspective of, all you can do right now is live in the moment and take it day by day.

"I had quite a few things going on at the same time, and I could barely walk without losing my breath. I'd walk and have to sit down."

For many, a situation like this could derail your life plans, or keep you from returning to the things you love doing.

Beruldsen took a different mental approach, refusing to let her surgery stop her from playing AFLW in 2026.

"I saw it as I'm quite lucky. People who get news like this don't always get the best results or the best answers. I used that to my advantage, reflected and thought, 'how do I want to make the most of this thing that's happened to me?'," Beruldsen said.

"I was given the time and space to sit down for the first time and truly believe in myself and what I wanted to do. It gave my body an opportunity to rest. When you're in hospital, all you can do is rest. Historically, I'm not very good at that.

"Having the time to rest and rebuild the foundations of my body...was probably the [reason] I had an awesome pre-season."

At the best of times, a football pre-season at the highest level is extremely gruelling, even for the fittest and healthiest player on the team.

For Beruldsen, she couldn't quite believe just how far she had regressed, and how much more work was needed behind the scenes to return to full strength.

"There's so much that goes on in the background that nobody sees. I would have countless sessions where I was in so much pain running. It's the feeling of a stitch that doesn't go away," she recalled.

"It's those physical and mental barriers that you're constantly trying to push yourself through. That's what makes great athletes great, their ability to overcome those hard times and to really have a goal in mind and work hard for it.

"Having a really good support system around you [is key]. I was really lucky being at Richmond, we've got amazing teammates that all care so deeply for you and want the best for you. They're with you every step of the way.

"I don't think I would have handled the whole situation as well as I did [if this was] at any other time in my life. It was probably a good thing it happened when it did, because I had the support around me and I knew what I wanted in football and life."

The advice she'd give others? Find the "silver lining" and find a way through.

"The craziest thing is that I didn't even notice it. You can go years without having any symptoms. Most often, they're found with incidental scans, which is how they found this one," Beruldsen said.

"I'm lucky we caught it when we did, maybe I would have presented with symptoms, maybe the surgery would have been a lot more complex, maybe it would have happened in a time of my life where I couldn't afford to have that time off. 

"I was very lucky that it was caught at the end of the season. I had six to eight months of the year to come back from the surgery. It was a silver lining.

"People do come back from setbacks. It's making the most of what you've got in front of you."

As for what lies ahead, Beruldsen is full of big dreams, utilising her setback as a key driver to continue to strive for fulfilment in football and life.

"Part of this will always be with me. I'm trying to use it as a strength. I've found so many positives out of it for the experience that it was," she said.

"Knowing that you can go through the worst moment of your life and come out of it better than before, that gives me a lot of motivation.

"To go, 'no, I've got the strength, I've done the work, I truly believe in myself', that in itself is more powerful than anything."