She is now left pondering what to do in the future, which 10 days ago looked to be well mapped out.
The former Southern Steel captain has been forced to retire from netball a year earlier than planned.
Brown (34) injured her knee during the Central Pulse's first match of a pre-season tournament in Sydney last weekend.
Scans showed Brown ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and sustained a grade two tear of her medial cruciate ligament (MCL) in her right knee.
While Brown feared the worst at the time, confirmation that her final season in the ANZ Championship was over before it began left her "gutted''.
Brown, who played 40 matches for the Steel between 2012-14, retired from international netball after the Netball World Cup last October.
She was always planning to retire from all netball after this year's transtasman competition, but said being forced to retire earlier than planned was hard to take.
"That's probably the worst part of it all,'' she said.
"The fact that I had to finish like this. It obviously wasn't what I was planning on doing.''
Brown, who ruptured her ACL in her left knee in the lead up to the 2006 Commonwealth Games, briefly entertained the thought of attempting to return to the top level after rehab.
"The thought did go through my mind. I've come back from one so I thought that I could do it again,'' she said.
However, she has settled for retirement, after realising the extent of the MCL injury and taking into account her age.
"I know what it takes to be at this level and it will take nine months to rehab my knee and then to start my fitness from scratch again, at this stage of my career, is just a bridge too far.''
Brown's leg will be in a brace for the next six to eight weeks, to allow the MCL tear to heal.
She will then undergo surgery to repair the ruptured ACL.
She hopes to be fully recovered "sometime next year'', giving her plenty of time to possibly enter a team in the 2018 Dunedin Masters Games.
Brown, who still lived in Dunedin while playing for the Pulse, will continue to live in the city.
"I'd like to give back to netball in some shape or form,'' she said.
"It's given me so much over the 13 plus years I've been involved with it.
"What that looks like I'm not sure ... I probably just need to take a deep breath and let things settle for a bit and then assess the options and opportunities and see where we go from there.''
