At 19, Amy found her calling: competitive snowboarding. Her plan was to travel the world, do massage and shred to her heart's content. She was primed to do just that until one small scrape from a rock almost killed her.
Amy's Story
"I was told I was going to lose my hands, my feet, my chin, and my nose."
In 1999, I was 19 and on top of the world. Winters, I would snowboard (competitively). Summers, I would wakeboard. I was also a massage therapist and I had a great job working in a world class spa. I felt like I was in total in control of my life and I loved every aspect of it. Then one day I was at a lake and I cut my toe on a rock. It got infected. At first I thought I had the flu, but I had actually contracted bacterial meningitis. Within hours the bacteria entered my blood stream and (as the doctors soon put it) began raging through my body. Over the next three months I endured a coma, 32 blood transfusions, numerous surgeries and the amputation of both my legs below the knee.
"Who would be excited about losing their legs?"
My friends were there when the doctor told me they needed to amputate my feet the next morning. They were so lighthearted. They said: "Don't worry Amy. Now you'll be able to snowboard and your feet aren't going to get cold." And I never really looked back. I automatically started to think of when I snowboard again! Snowboarding with funky legs became this huge, exciting challenge which is kind of strange because who would be excited about losing their legs? The hard parts did come, like the day I stood up on my prosthetic legs for the first time. I stood up for about two minutes then I went home and slept in my bed for two days, just drained. You think you're just going to get up on prosthetic legs and walk again but, standing up in prosthetics is a completely different feeling. Your legs are completely confined and now you are relying on these feet that aren't even attached to you for balance. I mean your feet have hundreds of bones and hundreds of muscles and all of a sudden you are trying to walk on stilts?! It was incredibly painful, so the challenge was getting into the legs and wanting to walk. So, I got a puppy. She was a crazy puppy and she loved to be outside and she loved to run away like five times everyday. My parents would say: "Well, she is your dog and you have to go and get her." So, I would put my legs on and go and chase her through the desert and bring her back...
"Seven months after I left the hospital I got back on a snowboard."
I was 83 pounds. I had kidney failure and stomach tubes sticking out of me but I went up the mountain with friends. I put my snowboard on and made it off the lift just fine. That was the surprising part. That was when I started to feel anxious. For seven months I had convinced myself that I could do this but it wasn't until that very day that I had to admit to the idea of: "What if I can't?"
"How do I want my life story to go from here?"
I try to look at my life as if my life is a movie and I am the director; from the outside looking in. I have control over whether I am going to have a happy life or a depressed one. It really is a choice. My motto is: What makes you unique makes you beautiful. I try to remind myself of this everyday.
"It drives me crazy when people feel sorry for me!"
Since I got sick I have done great things. I have been in a Madonna music video, I've been cast as the lead in an award winning indie film, I have returned to snowboarding and wakeboarding competitively, and I have started my own non-profit organization called Adaptive Action Sports (AAS). We help people with disabilities get involved with action sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, rock climbing and surfing.
So far, my greatest accomplishment is by far the non-profit. The fact that an idea can turn into a concrete reality and I am helping other people do what they love is so rewarding. I think about AAS all day, everyday. My mind doesn't stop. It definitely keeps me on my toes.
