Pfizer's actually teamed up with my nonprofit organization, which is called Adaptive Action Sports. I cofounded this organization in 2005 to help people with physical disabilities get involved in action sports, go snowboarding, skateboarding.
After I lost my legs, all I wanted to do was snowboard again. I remember spending an entire year on the computer, looking for 'adaptive snowboarders' or 'snowboard legs' or 'adaptive snowboard schools' or just something that I could connect to. I already knew how to snowboard - I just needed to find the right legs.
I was on my death bed, and I remember hanging on to these words, 'Don't be scared. You are going to live an amazing life,' and I have.
My dad had given my sister and I our starter car, a red, old 1985 Chevy Blazer. It was so beat up, the taillights would fall off, and we would use red duct tape.
It's when I compare myself to what other people are able to do that I run into trouble. It is a bummer. I just constantly try to put things into perspective.
I grew up born and raised in Las Vegas and actually grew up skiing. You know, we've got some ski resorts close to Las Vegas, up in Mount Charleston or Brian Head, so I grew up skiing and snowboarding.
When I turned 16 and got my license, the Chevy Blazer was passed down from my sister, so it was very much a starter car.
I was 19 years old, and I felt like I had the flu one day. Within 24 hours, I was in the hospital on life support, and I was given less than a 2 percent chance of living. It took five days for the doctors to find out that I had contracted bacterial meningitis.
I'm a big oatmeal fan. For my every-morning breakfast, I will do oatmeal with cinnamon, goat's milk or even butter, with apples and raisins, and then I'll maybe do some eggs, say two poached eggs with that.
I was in kidney failure. I ended up having a kidney transplant on my 21st birthday.
Dancing is about expressing yourself, and the more walls you let down, the better.
I am not an over-the-top kind of person.
The thing with prosthetic feet is you can't have all this crazy motion, or you'd be all over the place - because it's mechanical, and it's outside your body.
Just because I've got two prosthetic legs, yeah, I had to adapt in ways, but I've also become a lot stronger. It doesn't mean I'm at any disadvantage, really.
I have two prosthetic legs. This is my life; what am I going to do with it? And it's put me on this amazing journey. I can look back and be completely grateful and say I would never want to change anything.
I'm an athlete, yes, but I'm also a woman. I'm someone who kind of, in a way, lost touch with that part of myself after I lost my legs, because there are certain feminine traits you lose when you have prosthetic legs.
We all have challenges. You can let them be obstacles or roadblocks, or you can use them.
I'm so comfortable on my snowboard that I don't have to think about it very much; it's somewhat second nature.
In my dreams, whatever I am doing, I look down to see if I have prosthetics. It sets my time frame in my dream, I think. I'd have these dreams that I am running and launching myself, and I look down and see that I have prosthetics. I have a lot of those, where I do great, amazing things with my prosthetics.
