Dunedin-born and raised former Miss World New Zealand Deborah Lambie's all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC to judge the finals of the competition started off ``amazing'' but quickly turned ``very bad''.
She said it was during ``pre-filming'' of the competition on December 17 that she began to feel ill.
``I was at a judge's table and all of a sudden it felt like I'd been hit in the back of a head with a baseball bat.''
This was accompanied by terrible nausea and, much to her embarrassment, uncontrollable vomiting.
``I was mortified, but it quickly became clear that I wouldn't be able to carry on like that.''
Instead of judging the competition, which was won by Stephanie Del Valle, of Puerto Rico, she was taken to hospital.
This was followed by a ``miserable'' Christmas and New Year period.
She arrived back in New Zealand just before Christmas and was discharged from Wellington Hospital last week.
She was beginning to feel much better.
Her illness could be traced to a fall four months ago that resulted in four discs in her back prolapsing. This led to a dural tear in her spine, which caused a fluid leak, resulting in the severe headaches, nausea and vomiting.
She counted herself lucky that she had good travel insurance, which paid for her time in hospital and changes to her flights, and for the great time she had in Washington before she got sick.
Miss Lambie was a pupil at Columba College and studied at the University of Otago's medical school in Dunedin before moving to Wellington, where she is now a doctor.
She came 15th out of 117 contestants in the Miss World competition in China in December 2015.
She attracted some controversy for performing a haka in the talent category.
Yesterday she said the episode taught her how brutal social media could be, but had not put her off learning more about Maori culture.
She was now learning to speak te reo.
