It started with a headache. But within days Peta Teys was in a hospital emergency room, her pulse racing at 200 beats a minute, vomiting and in pain.

Only days earlier the swimwear maker and designer had celebrated her 18th birthday, feeling a little under the weather after returning from a trip to Bali.

Relaxed now: Peta Teys after her spell in hospital isolation. Credit:Brendan Esposito

A local GP and hospital failed to realise that she had contracted measles while there.

She was in hospital for more than a week, including periods kept in isolation, but it was not to end there.