Living beyond limits

If your life were a book

and you were the author,

how would you want your story to go?

That's the question
that changed my life forever.

Growing up in the hot Last Vegas desert,

all I wanted was to be free.

I would daydream about
traveling the world,

living in a place where it snowed,

and I would picture all of the stories

that I would go on to tell.

At the age of 19,

the day after I graduated high school,

I moved to a place where it snowed

and I became a massage therapist.

With this job all I needed were my hands

and my massage table by my side

and I could go anywhere.

For the first time in my life,

I felt free, independent

and completely in control of my life.

That is, until my life took a detour.

I went home from work early one day

with what I thought was the flu,

and less than 24 hours later

I was in the hospital

on life support

with less than a two percent chance of living.

It wasn't until days later

as I lay in a coma

that the doctors diagnosed me

with bacterial meningitis,

a vaccine-preventable blood infection.

Over the course of two and a half months

I lost my spleen, my kidneys,

the hearing in my left ear

and both of my legs below the knee.

When my parents
wheeled me out of the hospital

I felt like I had been
pieced back together

like a patchwork doll.

I thought the worst was over

until weeks later when I saw my new legs

for the first time.

The calves were bulky blocks of metal

with pipes bolted together for the ankles

and a yellow rubber foot

with a raised rubber line
from the toe to the ankle

to look like a vein.

I didn't know what to expect,

but I wasn't expecting that.

With my mom by my side

and tears streaming down our faces,

I strapped on these chunky legs

and I stood up.

They were so painful and so confining

that all I could think was,

how am I ever going to travel the world

in these things?

How was I ever going to live

the life full of adventure and stories,

as I always wanted?

And how was I going to snowboard again?

That day, I went home, I crawled into bed

and this is what my life looked like

for the next few months:

me passed out, escaping from reality,

with my legs resting by my side.

I was absolutely physically
and emotionally broken.

But I knew that in order to move forward,

I had to let go of the old Amy

and learn to embrace the new Amy.

And that is when it dawned on me

that I didn't have to be five-foot-five anymore.

I could be as tall as I wanted!

(Laughter) (Applause)

Or as short as I wanted,
depending on who I was dating.

(Laughter)

And if I snowboarded again,

my feet aren't going to get cold.

(Laughter)

And best of all, I thought,

I can make my feet the size
of all the shoes

that are on the sales rack.
(Laughter)

And I did!

So there were benefits here.

It was this moment that I asked myself

that life-defining question:

If my life were a book

and I were the author,

how would I want the story to go?

And I began to daydream.

I daydreamed like I did as a little girl

and I imagined myself

walking gracefully,

helping other people through my journey

and snowboarding again.

And I didn't just see myself

carving down a mountain of powder,

I could actually feel it.

I could feel the wind against my face

and the beat of my racing heart

as if it were happening
in that very moment.

And that is when a new chapter
in my life began.

Four months later
I was back up on a snowboard,

although things didn't go
quite as expected:

My knees and my ankles wouldn't bend

and at one point I traumatized
all the skiers on the chair lift

when I fell and my legs,

still attached to my snowboard —

(Laughter) —

went flying down the mountain,

and I was on top of the mountain still.

I was so shocked,

I was just as shocked as everybody else,
and I was so discouraged,

but I knew that if I could find the right pair of feet

that I would be able to do this again.

And this is when I learned
that our borders

and our obstacles
can only do two things:

one, stop us in our tracks

or two, force us to get creative.

I did a year of research,
still couldn't figure out

what kind of legs to use,

couldn't find any resources
that could help me.

So I decided to make a pair myself.

My leg maker and I
put random parts together

and we made a pair of feet
that I could snowboard in.

As you can see,

rusted bolts, rubber,
wood and neon pink duct tape.

And yes, I can change my toenail polish.

It was these legs

and the best 21st birthday gift
I could ever receive —

a new kidney from my dad —

that allowed me to follow my dreams again.

I started snowboarding,

then I went back to work,
then I went back to school.

Then in 2005 I cofounded
a nonprofit organization

for youth and young adults
with physical disabilities

so they could get involved
with action sports.

From there, I had the opportunity to go to South Africa,

where I helped to put shoes
on thousands of children's feet

so they could attend school.

And just this past February,

I won two back-to-back
World Cup gold medals —

(Applause) —

which made me

the highest ranked
adaptive female snowboarder

in the world.

Eleven years ago, when I lost my legs,

I had no idea what to expect.

But if you ask me today,

if I would ever want to
change my situation,

I would have to say no.

Because my legs haven't disabled me,

if anything they've enabled me.

They've forced me to rely on my imagination

and to believe in the possibilities,

and that's why I believe

that our imaginations can be used as tools

for breaking through borders,

because in our minds,
we can do anything

and we can be anything.

It's believing in those dreams

and facing our fears head-on

that allows us to live our lives

beyond our limits.

And although today is about
innovation without borders,

I have to say that in my life,

innovation has only been possible

because of my borders.

I've learned that borders are where the actual ends,

but also where the imagination

and the story begins.

So the thought that I would like
to challenge you with today

is that maybe instead of looking at
our challenges and our limitations

as something negative or bad,

we can begin to look at them as blessings,

magnificent gifts that can be used
to ignite our imaginations

and help us go further
than we ever knew we could go.

It's not about breaking down borders.

It's about pushing off of them

and seeing what amazing places

they might bring us.

Thank you.