My esim suddenly stopped working on new iphone SE - why?

I've had my new iphone SE for 2 weeks - it's the 2022 version (3rd generation). When I bought it, I put the physical sim into it and converted it to an esim. My phone was working normally and for 2 weeks, I was making calls etc until suddenly, yesterday the esim stopped working. The "SOS Only" error came up and I wasn't able to make any calls.

I jumped on to my laptop & got on to my carrier who said that on their computer system, my phone was listed as having a physical sim. I insisted that I had been using the esim for 2 weeks without issue and that suddenly, the esim just died. To prove that I was using the esim, I dialled *#06# and got the esim's EID number. My carrier couldn't believe it and told me that this problem was uh, "very rare."

They told me to take the phone to a Telstra shop (the carrier) to get someone to look at it but given that the nearest Telstra shop is a 4 hour drive away, I can't get there for at least a week. Ugh.

Has anyone else had an esim that just stopped working without warning? If so, how did you fix it? It's driving me insane.