Living beyond limits

If your life were a book, and you were the author,

how would you want your story to go?

That was the question that changed my life forever.

Growing up in the hot, Las 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 2% chance of living.

It wasn't until days later, as I lay in a coma,

that the doctors diagnosed me with bacterial menengitis,

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 that looked 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 a 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's when it dawned on me:

that I didn't have to be 5'5" anymore.

I could be as tall as I wanted!

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

And, if I snowboarded again, my feet aren't going to get cold.

And most of all, I thought,

I can make my feet the size of all the shoes that are on the sales rack. 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 this 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 injury, 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,

went sliding 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 find what 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 co-founded a non-profit 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.

11 years ago, when I lost my legs,

I had no idea what to expect.

But if you asked 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 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 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.