Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 16: Amy Purdy, Snowboarder & Paralympic Medalist

Transcript

Episode 16: Amy Purdy, Snowboarder & Paralympic Medalist · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Emily a body here. Welcome back to another
0:05
Speaker 1: episode of Hurdle. This week's pod is truly special. In it,
0:10
Speaker 1: you'll meet Amy Purdy, a Paralympic medallist and snowboard champ
0:13
Speaker 1: who is, without a doubt, one of the most down
0:16
Speaker 1: to earth awesome humans I've ever had the fortune of interviewing.
0:20
Speaker 1: We recorded this when I was out in Colorado at
0:22
Speaker 1: the GoPro Mountain Games, and it was kind of surreal
0:25
Speaker 1: when she walked into my hotel room because I had
0:28
Speaker 1: just watched her clip on Lewis House podcast. I had
0:30
Speaker 1: read her excerpt from Oprah's book The Wisdom of Sunday's
0:34
Speaker 1: Peaking at clips from her time on Dancing with the Stars.
0:37
Speaker 1: Amy's a big deal. In nineteen ninety nine, at just
0:41
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, her whole life changed after contracting a
0:44
Speaker 1: form of bacterial meningitis. Doctors gave her a two percent
0:49
Speaker 1: chance of living, and due to a lack of circulation,
0:52
Speaker 1: she lost both of her legs below the knee. The
0:55
Speaker 1: craziest part is that she's so darned thankful for all
0:58
Speaker 1: of it. From making her into the woman that she
1:00
Speaker 1: is today, A lot of people would have had a
1:03
Speaker 1: hard time keeping that same positive perspective that Amy's been
1:06
Speaker 1: able to maintain, and that's why this episode is so epic,
1:10
Speaker 1: and we talk about how all of that went down,
1:13
Speaker 1: how she got back on the mountain to do a
1:14
Speaker 1: sport that she loved and worked her tail off all
1:17
Speaker 1: the way to the Paralympic podium, scoring bronze in twenty
1:21
Speaker 1: fourteen and silver in twenty eighteen. There is no shortage
1:25
Speaker 1: of inspiration to come and also a few tears from
1:29
Speaker 1: both sides of the microphone. As always, check out Hurdle
1:32
Speaker 1: on social at Hurdle podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Email
1:36
Speaker 1: me if you need anything, if you want to say hi,
1:38
Speaker 1: if you've got your own hurdle moment to share Emily
1:41
Speaker 1: at hurdle dot us and please please, when you're done
1:45
Speaker 1: listening to today's episode, take the time to rate and
1:48
Speaker 1: review Hurdle in the iTunes store. It really helps the
1:51
Speaker 1: podcast get some more visibility. Lastly, sign up for the newsletter.
1:55
Speaker 1: Head on over to hurdle dot us slash featured, scroll
1:59
Speaker 1: to the bottom and give me your name, your email,
2:02
Speaker 1: and your dates. And that's it. Let's get to hurdling today.
2:20
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with Amy Purty. She's a Paralympic medalist
2:23
Speaker 1: and a champion snowboarder, a total badass. Thanks so much
2:27
Speaker 1: for sitting down with me today.
2:28
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having me.
2:30
Speaker 1: I have to admit I'm kind of in awe of
2:33
Speaker 1: this opportunity. I was listening. I feel like everyone that
2:42
Speaker 1: I admire has sat down with you, and the fact
2:44
Speaker 1: that I'm sitting here right now in Vale, Colorado and
2:47
Speaker 1: sitting down with you is just really special. Before we
2:51
Speaker 1: even really kick this off, can you talk to me
2:54
Speaker 1: about what it was like when you realized that you
2:55
Speaker 1: were in Oprah's book.
2:57
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, crazy, I'm surreal like that. It's so crazy
3:05
Speaker 2: because I feel like that was like a massive I
3:08
Speaker 2: don't know, and not an accomplishment, but for me, just
3:11
Speaker 2: one of the biggest things that I've been a part
3:13
Speaker 2: of and to be thought of from Oprah and she
3:17
Speaker 2: hands selected who is going to be in her book
3:19
Speaker 2: and to be one of those people in her book,
3:21
Speaker 2: it's you know, I felt like I made it. I
3:26
Speaker 2: did it whatever that means. I made it.
3:28
Speaker 1: It's like adult goals. It's so funny. It's like you
3:30
Speaker 1: get on the podium in the Olympics, right and that's amazing.
3:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I feel like I can put it on
3:35
Speaker 2: my resume, like, well, I'm in Oprah's book, so that
3:38
Speaker 2: tells you anything.
3:39
Speaker 1: I also do speaking engagement. Talk to me a little
3:42
Speaker 1: bit about how you got into snowboarding in the first place.
3:45
Speaker 2: So I grew up in Las Vegas, which most people
3:48
Speaker 2: don't think of a professional skier snowboarder coming from Las Vegas,
3:52
Speaker 2: But we actually had ski resorts just around where I lived,
3:56
Speaker 2: actually forty five minutes from my house. We had a
3:58
Speaker 2: ski resort, and so I used to ski when I
4:02
Speaker 2: was small. I was never good at it, and then
4:04
Speaker 2: I started snowboarding when I was fifteen. And I really
4:08
Speaker 2: just found myself when I started snowboarding because in high school,
4:12
Speaker 2: I mean, we all know how challenging high school can be.
4:15
Speaker 2: My sister was a cheerleader and super popular, and you know,
4:19
Speaker 2: dated dated like the head football player and homecoming queen
4:23
Speaker 2: and that whole thing, and so I didn't know. I
4:27
Speaker 2: just didn't know who I was. I didn't know if
4:29
Speaker 2: that's what I was trying to do, is follow her footsteps,
4:32
Speaker 2: and just didn't know where I fit in high school.
4:35
Speaker 2: And I ended up meeting a group of skateboarders who
4:39
Speaker 2: also were snowboarders and artists and musicians, and they took
4:43
Speaker 2: me snowboarding one day and I fell in love with
4:45
Speaker 2: it and I picked it up really fast, and yeah,
4:48
Speaker 2: I just kind of I found my people and then
4:51
Speaker 2: found the space that I wanted to be in. And
4:54
Speaker 2: I loved snowboarding. I loved being outside, being with my friends.
4:59
Speaker 2: I love that there weren't any rules, you know, like
5:04
Speaker 2: like a team sport, there's all these rules, and snowboarding
5:06
Speaker 2: it's like you can just you can create whatever trick
5:08
Speaker 2: you want, do whatever you want. So we'd go up
5:10
Speaker 2: to the mountains after school and build a little jumps
5:14
Speaker 2: and just play.
5:16
Speaker 1: And just play. How how soon after getting started with
5:19
Speaker 1: snowboarding did you realize that you were really good at it?
5:22
Speaker 2: You know what? I wanted to say that I was
5:24
Speaker 2: really good at it, but I was. I was. I
5:26
Speaker 2: was a natural when it came to just picking picking
5:29
Speaker 2: it up. So some people, you know, have to go
5:31
Speaker 2: through lessons, and like you have to when I teach
5:34
Speaker 2: snowboarding now, I tell people they need four days, like
5:38
Speaker 2: four good solid days and then you got it. Whereas
5:40
Speaker 2: for me, for whatever reason, I think it's because these guys,
5:44
Speaker 2: all these guys who I had crushes on, took me
5:47
Speaker 2: up to the mountain and they were like, follow us,
5:50
Speaker 2: and that's it. They didn't they didn't teach me how
5:52
Speaker 2: to snowboard. They were just like, keep up. And so
5:55
Speaker 2: I remember getting off the chair lift and them just
5:58
Speaker 2: taking off, and it was a powder day, it had
6:02
Speaker 2: There was a couple inches of snow, so I could
6:03
Speaker 2: see their tracks and I just thought, Okay, I'm just
6:06
Speaker 2: going to stay in their tracks, and so I ended
6:08
Speaker 2: up just picking it up. By the end of the day,
6:10
Speaker 2: I was carving and maybe not keeping up with the boys,
6:13
Speaker 2: but definitely working my way down the mountains.
6:15
Speaker 1: The things you do when you're chasing a cue guy.
6:17
Speaker 2: Honestly, I know, it's so funny. It was full motivation
6:21
Speaker 2: for me.
6:21
Speaker 1: So you're a teenager and you're getting into snowboarding and
6:25
Speaker 1: you start to realize that something feels a little off.
6:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, well actually, so all of this happened very fast,
6:32
Speaker 2: within twenty four hours. So I was a massage therapist.
6:37
Speaker 2: And the reason I became a massage therapist was because
6:39
Speaker 2: I wanted to travel the world in snowboard and I
6:42
Speaker 2: wanted to have a job that would travel with me.
6:45
Speaker 2: So I thought, all I need is my hands, my
6:47
Speaker 2: massage table. I can go anywhere. And my plan was
6:51
Speaker 2: to live in different ski resorts and snowboard and massage basically.
6:54
Speaker 2: And so, and I loved my job as a massage therapist.
6:58
Speaker 2: And I was actually very good at that as well.
7:01
Speaker 2: And because I just yeah, I realized I enjoyed I
7:05
Speaker 2: guess healing, you know, the healing arts and helping people
7:09
Speaker 2: one way or another. And so anyways, I went to
7:14
Speaker 2: work one day. I got hired at this amazing spa
7:16
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, a world class spa. I was the
7:19
Speaker 2: youngest massage therapist hired. And I went to work one
7:23
Speaker 2: day and I felt great in the morning, just like
7:26
Speaker 2: any nineteen year old would feel. And then halfway through
7:29
Speaker 2: the day, I started to feel really tired. I remember
7:33
Speaker 2: massaging this guy and just being absolutely exhausted, and I
7:36
Speaker 2: was thinking, God, this guy is just draining me. And
7:39
Speaker 2: so after I took a break after that massage, thinking well,
7:42
Speaker 2: maybe I have the flu, maybe I have a cold
7:44
Speaker 2: or something. So I took I just went to the
7:46
Speaker 2: lunch room and took a break. But I started to
7:49
Speaker 2: feel worse. I started to feel like my neck was
7:52
Speaker 2: zachy and my back was zachy, and started thinking that
7:55
Speaker 2: I had the flu. So I decided to go home
7:57
Speaker 2: from work early. And that night I had a temperature
8:00
Speaker 2: of one hundred and one, so that's like typical flu
8:02
Speaker 2: like symptoms. Next morning, my temperature actually broke, so I
8:07
Speaker 2: was supposed to go out of town with my family,
8:10
Speaker 2: but I just told them don't worry about me because
8:12
Speaker 2: I probably have some twenty four hour flu or something,
8:14
Speaker 2: and that's all we thought that I had. But that afternoon,
8:17
Speaker 2: instead of getting better, I started to get worse. And
8:21
Speaker 2: at one point, I remember I was laying in my parents' bed.
8:25
Speaker 2: That's always where I went when I was sick, and
8:27
Speaker 2: they had a TV in their room, so I was
8:29
Speaker 2: laying in their bed and I was so tired and
8:33
Speaker 2: I fell asleep, and I fell into the deepest sleep
8:37
Speaker 2: that I've ever felt like. I couldn't wake myself up.
8:39
Speaker 2: I kept trying to open my eyes and I kept
8:41
Speaker 2: trying to wake up, and I couldn't. And then suddenly
8:46
Speaker 2: I heard this voice say, Amy, get up and look
8:48
Speaker 2: in the mirror, and I immediately opened my eyes. I
8:52
Speaker 2: looked around. There was nobody there, and as I was
8:56
Speaker 2: sitting up, I started to realize that something was really
8:59
Speaker 2: wrong because my heart was beating out of my chest.
9:01
Speaker 2: I was shaky, I was dizzy, but I was so weak.
9:04
Speaker 2: I mean, it probably took me a good like three
9:06
Speaker 2: to five minutes just to get into a seated position.
9:09
Speaker 2: And then I scooted to the edge of the bed.
9:11
Speaker 2: I put my feet on the floor and I stood up,
9:13
Speaker 2: and I realized that I couldn't feel my feet. And
9:16
Speaker 2: when I looked at the floor, I saw that my
9:18
Speaker 2: feet were purple. And then I saw that my hands
9:20
Speaker 2: were purple. And then I looked at my reflection in
9:22
Speaker 2: the mirror, and I saw that my nose, my chin,
9:24
Speaker 2: my cheeks were purple as well. So I went into
9:27
Speaker 2: a full panic. At the same time, I felt like
9:31
Speaker 2: I was dying. I knew that I was dying so randomly.
9:35
Speaker 2: Right then, my cousin walked in because my mom had
9:38
Speaker 2: called her to come check on me. Wow, and yet
9:42
Speaker 2: she walked in. She said, oh my god, it looks
9:43
Speaker 2: like you're dead, and I said, I'm dying. I know,
9:46
Speaker 2: I am. I got to get to the hospital. So
9:48
Speaker 2: she rushed me to the hospital, and that was the
9:51
Speaker 2: beginning of a very you know, intense and crazy journey.
9:55
Speaker 1: Were you kind of keeping it together when you're like
9:59
Speaker 1: understanding what's happening? Are you just hysterical?
10:01
Speaker 2: How was that hysterical? I kept it together. Actually, I
10:04
Speaker 2: was like, which is crazy? My cousin she had no
10:07
Speaker 2: gas in her car. She was like, I got to
10:10
Speaker 2: go to a gas station. I was like, there's not time.
10:12
Speaker 2: I said, take my truck. Well, she didn't know how
10:14
Speaker 2: to drive a stick shift, and I was like, well,
10:15
Speaker 2: I'll teach you. Like I was like, whatever we got
10:17
Speaker 2: to do to get to the hospital right now. And
10:19
Speaker 2: I don't know why we didn't think of calling nine
10:21
Speaker 2: one one right, but I just thought it would be faster.
10:23
Speaker 1: She was already there.
10:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, let's get in a car and go and
10:26
Speaker 2: if we break down, we'll figure it out. But on
10:29
Speaker 2: the way to the hospital, my lungs were collapsing, so
10:33
Speaker 2: I had to like talk myself through every breath I took,
10:36
Speaker 2: like I was like, breathe, breathe, breathe, because my I
10:40
Speaker 2: mean I was, I was dying. I'm lucky that I survived.
10:44
Speaker 1: Just that, you know, next hour, so what's happening here?
10:49
Speaker 2: So I was going into septic shock because I contracted
10:53
Speaker 2: me Ninja kackle meningitis, which is a bacteria, and it
10:56
Speaker 2: spread like the flu or the cold. So just you know,
11:01
Speaker 2: maybe somebody sneezed on me and the elevator at work,
11:03
Speaker 2: and that's how I got it because it's airborne in
11:06
Speaker 2: the sense that you know, if somebody sneezes or coughs,
11:08
Speaker 2: then that bacteria can get on your nose and mouth
11:11
Speaker 2: and that's how it gets into your body. But the
11:13
Speaker 2: thing is that this bacteria, it's called Niceria namendetitis, I
11:19
Speaker 2: think it's what it's called, But that bacteria is actually
11:23
Speaker 2: very common. One in four people are carriers of it.
11:27
Speaker 2: They're just not sick from it because our bodies are
11:29
Speaker 2: immune to it and our bodies know to fight it off.
11:31
Speaker 2: It's almost like staff in the sense that like everybody
11:34
Speaker 2: has staff on them, but not everybody gets sick, you know,
11:37
Speaker 2: from the staph infection. So it's similar to that where
11:40
Speaker 2: it's really rare to get sick from it, but when
11:43
Speaker 2: you do, it's deadly. And so yeah, it's something like
11:46
Speaker 2: eighty five percent deadly in the first twenty four hours
11:50
Speaker 2: of your first flu like symptom. And the hardest part
11:53
Speaker 2: with it too is you think you have the flu.
11:55
Speaker 2: So there was nothing telling me that I had anything
11:58
Speaker 2: else but the flu at that point until suddenly I
12:01
Speaker 2: was in septic shock and going into cardiac arrest and everything,
12:05
Speaker 2: and so when I entered the hospital, they put me
12:07
Speaker 2: on life support right away. They had no idea what
12:09
Speaker 2: they had what I had. They thought I had toxic
12:12
Speaker 2: shock syndrome at first, so you know, they did blood
12:16
Speaker 2: cultures and they had to put all these ivs in me,
12:18
Speaker 2: and they ended up filling me up with oh my gosh,
12:21
Speaker 2: fifty pounds of water geese. Yeah. So I went in
12:24
Speaker 2: at one hundred and twenty pounds and by the time
12:26
Speaker 2: my parents saw me, I was one hundred and seventy
12:28
Speaker 2: five pounds. So completely looked totally different because I had
12:33
Speaker 2: no pressure in my veins, so they had to just
12:36
Speaker 2: keep filling me with water so they could get medication
12:38
Speaker 2: in me and stuff, and they didn't think I was
12:40
Speaker 2: going to make it through the night. They told my
12:42
Speaker 2: family they needed to say goodbye. So my family brought
12:45
Speaker 2: in like every friend I had, and everybody was surrounding
12:48
Speaker 2: me saying goodbye, and I remember thinking it was very
12:52
Speaker 2: It was very much show an outer body experience for
12:54
Speaker 2: me because I remember I was gasping for air and
12:57
Speaker 2: I knew I was dying, yet at the same time,
13:00
Speaker 2: there was a part of me. It's almost like a
13:01
Speaker 2: part of me detached from my body, because there's a
13:05
Speaker 2: part of me that was kind of thinking, like, all
13:09
Speaker 2: these people think I'm dying, but like there's something comical
13:14
Speaker 2: about it, which is so weird in my mind. I
13:16
Speaker 2: was like, all right, guys, like, don't you think this
13:19
Speaker 2: is a little extreme. Everybody's saying they're goodbyes at the
13:22
Speaker 2: same time I'm gasping for air or trying to breathe.
13:25
Speaker 2: So it was just this interesting like outer body, you know,
13:28
Speaker 2: surreal experience.
13:30
Speaker 1: And when does it turn the corner? When are you
13:32
Speaker 1: not dying anymore?
13:34
Speaker 2: Took a couple of weeks, so I that next week
13:38
Speaker 2: or two was the worst.
13:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:41
Speaker 2: I was put on life support, put into an induced coma.
13:43
Speaker 2: My parents had no idea if I'd wake up again.
13:46
Speaker 2: At that point, my spleen burst. I was rushed into
13:49
Speaker 2: this emergency surgery and the doctors didn't think I was
13:52
Speaker 2: going to survive the surgery at all. This my spleen
13:54
Speaker 2: bursts inside of me, and they had like five minutes
13:56
Speaker 2: to get it out or something crazy and so, and
13:59
Speaker 2: I had near death experience when that happened. And then
14:03
Speaker 2: just all my organs were hemorrhaging except for my heart
14:06
Speaker 2: and my brain, and which is amazing to me, like
14:09
Speaker 2: the most the two most important organs were okay, and so, yeah,
14:15
Speaker 2: it was very touch and go for about two weeks there.
14:19
Speaker 2: But then as I started to wake up from this coma,
14:21
Speaker 2: that's when I realized that my hands and my feet
14:25
Speaker 2: were in big trouble because of the septic shock that
14:28
Speaker 2: I went into. I lost circulation to my hands and
14:31
Speaker 2: my feet, so my fingers were black, the soles of
14:34
Speaker 2: my feet were black, my feet were purple, my toes
14:38
Speaker 2: were black. And basically, when you're in septic shock, your
14:43
Speaker 2: body pulls blood from your extremities to save your organs.
14:46
Speaker 2: So that's what was happening, and that's why I saw
14:48
Speaker 2: That's why I couldn't feel my feet, you know. And
14:50
Speaker 2: I woke up that one day. I couldn't feel my feet,
14:52
Speaker 2: I couldn't fel my hands because I was starting to
14:54
Speaker 2: go into septic shock before I got to the hospital.
14:56
Speaker 2: And then it just they they were doing everything they
14:59
Speaker 2: could to save my hands, my feet, and so I
15:03
Speaker 2: was very aware that that there's the possibility that I
15:07
Speaker 2: was going to lose my legs, and we thought I
15:08
Speaker 2: was losing my hands as well. But I got very
15:12
Speaker 2: lucky that my hands turned around. It's yeah, it's it's
15:18
Speaker 2: amazing because the doctor said that most likely my fingers
15:22
Speaker 2: were just going to fall off because they're that bad.
15:24
Speaker 2: They were just black, and so to have my hands
15:28
Speaker 2: start to recover was amazing. But my feet continue to
15:32
Speaker 2: get worse, and so I ended up losing both my
15:36
Speaker 2: legs below the knees and having my legs amputated, well
15:39
Speaker 2: kind of just above the ankles amputated.
15:42
Speaker 1: It's really beautiful that you can be going through that
15:45
Speaker 1: experience and still have the frame of mind to say
15:50
Speaker 1: that I'm so thankful I have my hands.
15:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that's what you know, got me
15:56
Speaker 2: through some of my toughest days. There was gratitude because
16:01
Speaker 2: it could have been so much worse, and I knew
16:02
Speaker 2: it could be worse, like not only was I possibly
16:06
Speaker 2: loosing my hands, but also my nose was really bad.
16:09
Speaker 2: Like they had a plastic surgeon come in and show
16:12
Speaker 2: me a mirror and say, like, we're going to have
16:13
Speaker 2: to reconstruct your nose because it was just black and
16:17
Speaker 2: so thinking that I was going to lose, you know,
16:19
Speaker 2: part of my face and my hands and my feet.
16:21
Speaker 2: By the time I lost my feet, honestly, I thought,
16:25
Speaker 2: oh my god, that was a close one, Like I
16:27
Speaker 2: only lost my feet, Like, how lucky am I. So
16:30
Speaker 2: it's all about perspective.
16:32
Speaker 1: Right, What was it like for you when you got
16:36
Speaker 1: your first set of prosthetics?
16:40
Speaker 2: Uh? So scary. That's when it got real. So I
16:43
Speaker 2: would say when I was in the hospital, I was
16:46
Speaker 2: really positive. I stayed really strong, never cried, never shedd
16:50
Speaker 2: a tear.
16:50
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. I'm like crying almost sitting there.
16:54
Speaker 2: And I think part of that was I would have
16:57
Speaker 2: never known that I was that strong. But I think
16:59
Speaker 2: part of it I was on survival mode. So you
17:03
Speaker 2: set your emotions aside and you're doing whatever you got
17:05
Speaker 2: to do to just get through the next day. And
17:08
Speaker 2: also everybody around me was crying. Everybody around me was heartbroken.
17:12
Speaker 2: And you know, my parents went through so much and
17:15
Speaker 2: seeing their daughter lose her legs, and they had no
17:18
Speaker 2: idea what my life was going to be like. And
17:20
Speaker 2: I wanted to let them know that everything was going
17:22
Speaker 2: to be okay, Like I felt like I kind of
17:24
Speaker 2: needed to be strong for everybody else too, So I
17:27
Speaker 2: think that was part of it, was just but also
17:30
Speaker 2: being grateful once again, I thought, oh my god, I
17:32
Speaker 2: almost died. I'm so grateful. Okay, I can handle this.
17:35
Speaker 2: And at one point I remember thinking, well, this happened
17:38
Speaker 2: to the right person because I know I can handle it,
17:40
Speaker 2: which is crazy. I didn't even know what I was
17:43
Speaker 2: dealing with.
17:44
Speaker 1: What's that saying. It's like God only gives the tough
17:46
Speaker 1: stuff to the people he knows that can handle it.
17:48
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean that's that's that's how I felt.
17:55
Speaker 2: Not that it was easy, not that I wasn't completely scared,
17:59
Speaker 2: but I think I had I was forced to be
18:02
Speaker 2: in the moment, and when you're in the moment, you
18:04
Speaker 2: can't you don't have anxiety about the future. You're just
18:08
Speaker 2: trying to get through a moment to moment. So that
18:11
Speaker 2: helped me definitely emotionally.
18:13
Speaker 1: So the doctors come in with some legs.
18:16
Speaker 2: Well, so I did see some prosthetic legs when I
18:19
Speaker 2: was in the hospital. Right before they amputated my legs,
18:21
Speaker 2: a prostatist came in to introduce himself, and he was
18:25
Speaker 2: this young surfer guy. He had lost his leg above
18:28
Speaker 2: the knee and a motorcycle accident. So it was nice
18:31
Speaker 2: they sent me this like young active guy so that
18:34
Speaker 2: I could see that life goes on. And he brought
18:37
Speaker 2: all these different legs and was trying to show me what,
18:40
Speaker 2: you know, prosthetics look like. And yeah, I mean I
18:44
Speaker 2: so I had seen them, and then basically I didn't
18:46
Speaker 2: get fit for my legs until after I left the hospital.
18:49
Speaker 2: So I was in the hospital for about two and
18:51
Speaker 2: a half months and then I i'd stay. Within the
18:55
Speaker 2: next like week or two, I was getting fit for
18:59
Speaker 2: my prosthetics and then I stood up in my legs
19:03
Speaker 2: for the.
19:03
Speaker 1: First time and talk to me about that.
19:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're so well. First of all, when he walked
19:09
Speaker 2: them in the room, I was devastated because I didn't
19:12
Speaker 2: know what I was expecting. I thought, Okay, I'm going
19:14
Speaker 2: to get my legs and go like thanks. So yeah,
19:17
Speaker 2: and he walked in with these legs that were just
19:19
Speaker 2: you know, pipes bolted together and these really bulky sockets,
19:24
Speaker 2: which is like the part that you that's customized around
19:27
Speaker 2: your limb. Yeah, and I just thought, there's no way
19:31
Speaker 2: those could be my legs. Like, as he was walking
19:33
Speaker 2: towards me, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, like
19:34
Speaker 2: these rubber feet, and the feet were like this yellow
19:37
Speaker 2: rubber foot and I just thought, oh my god, like
19:40
Speaker 2: these have to be temporary. There's no way that my
19:42
Speaker 2: legs are going to look like that the rest of
19:43
Speaker 2: my life. But so that was a lot to wrap
19:47
Speaker 2: my head around. And then putting them on for the
19:49
Speaker 2: first time, they were so painful and so like confining.
19:54
Speaker 2: I felt claustrophobic because you know your your calves and
19:59
Speaker 2: like basically I have ten inches below the knee and
20:01
Speaker 2: so that's where like they create this socket that you
20:05
Speaker 2: step into and lock in, and but like your calves
20:08
Speaker 2: and stuff aren't used to being confined like that in
20:11
Speaker 2: carbon fiber, and I just thought, oh my god, this
20:14
Speaker 2: is going to be so hot. And not only that,
20:16
Speaker 2: so you kind of lock into the legs and then
20:19
Speaker 2: you have to pull this like heavy sleeve over your knees,
20:22
Speaker 2: and then if your legs don't fit right, you have
20:24
Speaker 2: to put these wool socks on. And I'm living in
20:27
Speaker 2: Las Vegas. I'm like, oh my god, this is going
20:29
Speaker 2: to be the hottest. You know thing ever, And Yeah,
20:34
Speaker 2: when I stood up, I just thought, there's no way
20:36
Speaker 2: I'm going to be able to travel and snowboard and
20:39
Speaker 2: do all the things that I wanted to do.
20:41
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about snowboarding, because I
20:45
Speaker 1: feel like that must have been something that was kind
20:47
Speaker 1: of on your mind from the second they were like,
20:49
Speaker 1: we aren't going to be able to keep your legs.
20:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was on my mind absolutely from that moment on.
20:56
Speaker 2: For sure. When I go back into my medical records,
20:59
Speaker 2: pretty much every day I'm asking the doctors about snowboarding, Right,
21:03
Speaker 2: so when can I snowboard again? Have you seen some
21:05
Speaker 2: of the two prosthetic legs snowboards? So what do you
21:07
Speaker 2: think about snowboarding.
21:08
Speaker 1: And what was the climate of the sport at that time?
21:11
Speaker 1: Was anyone with prosthetic snowboarding?
21:13
Speaker 2: No? And actually it was very new. It was very
21:15
Speaker 2: new because there wasn't even a big female competitive space.
21:19
Speaker 2: There were some I looked up to, some amazing women
21:21
Speaker 2: like Barrett Christie was like my idol and snowboarding, but
21:25
Speaker 2: it was very very small just for women in the
21:28
Speaker 2: first place, let alone for someone with a disability. So I,
21:31
Speaker 2: you know, I had never even seen anybody with a
21:33
Speaker 2: prosthetic leg, let alone snowboarding with a prosthetic leg. So
21:38
Speaker 2: I really had to kind of figure it out myself.
21:41
Speaker 2: But I think the challenge of that of wanting to
21:44
Speaker 2: snowboard again and trying to find a way is what
21:48
Speaker 2: it kept me moving forward. And when I was in
21:51
Speaker 2: the hospital, actually when they when they wheeled me into
21:54
Speaker 2: the surgical room to amputate my legs, I was so scared,
21:59
Speaker 2: had no idea what my life was going to be like,
22:01
Speaker 2: could not wrap my head around what I was going
22:04
Speaker 2: to be dealing with. But I gave myself three goals,
22:09
Speaker 2: and one of them was that I had never missed
22:12
Speaker 2: a season of snowboarding, so I wasn't going to miss
22:14
Speaker 2: that season. So I just I knew that I would
22:18
Speaker 2: snowboard that year and try to figure it out. And
22:20
Speaker 2: then another goal was that when I figured all this out,
22:24
Speaker 2: I wanted to help other people. And the other one
22:27
Speaker 2: was that I wasn't going to feel sorry for myself,
22:30
Speaker 2: that no matter how things go, how bad things get,
22:33
Speaker 2: that I wasn't a victim and I wasn't going to
22:35
Speaker 2: feel sorry for myself. And so setting those goals really
22:39
Speaker 2: helped me that way. When I woke up and my
22:41
Speaker 2: legs were gone. You know, I still had these goals
22:44
Speaker 2: that I had set to move forward, and so snowboarding
22:47
Speaker 2: was one of them, and I started doing a ton
22:50
Speaker 2: of research when I got home from the hospital. The
22:54
Speaker 2: Internet was brand new at that time, kind of because
22:56
Speaker 2: we're talking like maybe eighteen years ago, and so I started,
23:02
Speaker 2: you know, just kind of googling, which I don't even
23:03
Speaker 2: know if it was Google at that time, but typing
23:06
Speaker 2: in like amputee snowboarder, snowboarder with prosthetic legs, disabled snowboarder,
23:11
Speaker 2: like trying to figure out what kind of feet were
23:13
Speaker 2: out there, because I knew I needed a special type
23:15
Speaker 2: of foot because the feet that I was walking and
23:18
Speaker 2: had zero movement at all. And with snowboarding you actually
23:21
Speaker 2: use your ankles and all the little bones and balancing,
23:24
Speaker 2: you know, parts of your feet so much. And I
23:27
Speaker 2: couldn't find anything. I ended up trying to snowboard and
23:32
Speaker 2: just the feet that I had, and it was disastrous,
23:36
Speaker 2: Like my ankles went to bend and I fell, and
23:39
Speaker 2: at one point my legs came off, and there's just
23:41
Speaker 2: all these hurdles you know that you have to just
23:45
Speaker 2: try it to figure out what it's going to be like, and.
23:49
Speaker 1: Were you just putting your prosthetic legs into traditional boots
23:53
Speaker 1: and bindings.
23:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I just put my normal boots on my
23:57
Speaker 2: normal board. My normal setup at that point wouldn't have
24:01
Speaker 2: had any idea of how to customize anything because I
24:03
Speaker 2: hadn't even tried it yet. So I really just needed
24:06
Speaker 2: to start somewhere. And that's actually a good message that
24:11
Speaker 2: I try to get across at some points as well.
24:13
Speaker 2: It's just like, you got to start somewhere, right, You
24:15
Speaker 2: have to like just begin, even if everything's wrong, then
24:18
Speaker 2: you can figure out what to do to make it right.
24:20
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I just went up with my sister
24:23
Speaker 2: and a friend, and I remember walking in my snowboard
24:26
Speaker 2: boots and it felt so weird and just every bit
24:29
Speaker 2: of it felt so foreign. And I think when I
24:32
Speaker 2: got on the chair lift and going up to snowboard
24:34
Speaker 2: for the very first time is when fear set in
24:38
Speaker 2: for the first time of what if I can't do this?
24:41
Speaker 2: Like what if I am going to find out in
24:43
Speaker 2: the next five minutes that this is basically impossible? And
24:47
Speaker 2: that's pretty much what happened, because you know, it was
24:50
Speaker 2: just kind of disastrous. My ankles didn't bend, my legs
24:54
Speaker 2: didn't stay on. It was painful, but it also gave
24:59
Speaker 2: me something to work with where I thought, Okay, if
25:01
Speaker 2: I if I can figure out a way to keep
25:03
Speaker 2: these legs attached, if I can figure out the right
25:06
Speaker 2: ankles or feet that move in the way that I
25:09
Speaker 2: need to, then I can do this again.
25:11
Speaker 1: And were you seeking out specialists in this and prosthetics
25:15
Speaker 1: to help you accomplish this?
25:17
Speaker 2: So when I went home from snowboarding that day, that's
25:22
Speaker 2: I started doing research and calling every adaptive ski school
25:27
Speaker 2: asking them if they've ever worked with an ampute snowboarder,
25:29
Speaker 2: which at that time they said no, and they said
25:31
Speaker 2: most of the time, if you're a double leg amputee,
25:34
Speaker 2: we put you in a monoski. And I thought, well,
25:37
Speaker 2: I'm not a skier and I want to use my legs.
25:39
Speaker 2: I don't want to take my legs off and sit
25:41
Speaker 2: in a monoski like I want a snowboard. And so
25:44
Speaker 2: that was the answer that I got constantly was like, no,
25:47
Speaker 2: we've never We've never worked with an ampute snowboarder before.
25:51
Speaker 2: And so then I started calling leg manufacturers and asking them,
25:54
Speaker 2: and you know, just whatever I could do. And my
25:57
Speaker 2: kind of I guess breakthrough was my brother in law
26:01
Speaker 2: had seen this guy on There used to be this
26:06
Speaker 2: kind of action sport TV show or a TV channel
26:09
Speaker 2: called Blue Torch. Do you remember Blue Torch was like
26:12
Speaker 2: all action sports space. Well, my brother in law was
26:16
Speaker 2: watching that and saw this guy snowboarding and then at
26:19
Speaker 2: the bottom of the run he pulled his pant leg
26:22
Speaker 2: up and he had a prosthetic leg, and so he
26:25
Speaker 2: videotaped this and sent it to me and I watched it,
26:29
Speaker 2: and as soon as I got finished watching it, I
26:31
Speaker 2: googled Blue Torch TV and there was a phone number
26:34
Speaker 2: and I called and the first guy who answered, I
26:36
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, you guys just aired somebody who has
26:38
Speaker 2: a prosthetic leg and snowboarded. Do you know what his
26:41
Speaker 2: name is or do you know what kind of leg
26:43
Speaker 2: he uses? And the guy who answered, he said, oh,
26:45
Speaker 2: that's Thin Maller, that's my best friend. So here's his
26:47
Speaker 2: phone number, and so I called him. Like so within
26:51
Speaker 2: minutes of seeing him, I called him and I was like, Hi,
26:54
Speaker 2: my name Sammy Perdy, and I had two prosthetic legs
26:57
Speaker 2: and I saw you snowboard, and all I want to
26:59
Speaker 2: know is what kind of legs you used? And he
27:01
Speaker 2: ended up hooking me up with this company who I
27:05
Speaker 2: ended up sending a letter to as well, like he
27:08
Speaker 2: kind of introduced me to the company, and then I
27:09
Speaker 2: sent this letter, and in this letter, I said, I
27:13
Speaker 2: don't know if a double leg amputee can snowboard, but
27:18
Speaker 2: if they can, I'm going to be the one to
27:20
Speaker 2: figure it out. So if you give me your feet,
27:23
Speaker 2: then I can test this out. And feet are expensive.
27:25
Speaker 2: Prosthetic legs are expensive. My legs set up is thirty
27:28
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. So to get a pair of legs just
27:32
Speaker 2: kind of sent to you is, you know, a really
27:35
Speaker 2: big deal. And so those were the first feet that
27:38
Speaker 2: I snowboarded, and they weren't really good. They didn't really
27:45
Speaker 2: work that well for me. I can see why they
27:47
Speaker 2: work for a single leg amputee like Fain Maller, but
27:50
Speaker 2: for a double it was still very challenging for me
27:53
Speaker 2: to ride in those feet because they had this kind
27:56
Speaker 2: of spring and every time I try to get onto
27:59
Speaker 2: my toe, you would spring me back. And so I
28:02
Speaker 2: knew at that point I needed my to edge to
28:04
Speaker 2: collapse like and stay there and not spring me back.
28:08
Speaker 2: And so then but what his feet allowed me to
28:11
Speaker 2: do is meet another well, meet another snowboarder who had
28:14
Speaker 2: a prosthetic leg, and then go up and play around
28:17
Speaker 2: a little bit and do a little bit better than
28:19
Speaker 2: I did before. So this baby steps And then I
28:22
Speaker 2: ended up actually making my own pair of feet to
28:25
Speaker 2: snowboard in at that point, because I knew what I needed,
28:28
Speaker 2: and so I went to my prosthetic shop and basically
28:32
Speaker 2: told them this is you know, this is the flexion
28:34
Speaker 2: that I need, and this is how it has to feel.
28:37
Speaker 2: And so we ended up taking different parts and pieces
28:40
Speaker 2: from other legs and just getting really creative, Like we
28:43
Speaker 2: made these Frankenstein feet because there is duct tape, pink
28:47
Speaker 2: duct tape holding stuff together. And I put these wood
28:50
Speaker 2: wedges under the heels, which allowed me to get onto
28:53
Speaker 2: my toes a little bit better. We took this ankle
28:55
Speaker 2: from this other company and turned it backwards and it
28:58
Speaker 2: allowed my ankle to collapse in the way I need
29:00
Speaker 2: it to. And so those feet are really what changed
29:04
Speaker 2: the game for me.
29:05
Speaker 1: I feel like I would have those feet like in
29:08
Speaker 1: a case they're.
29:10
Speaker 2: They're actually in the Smithsonian.
29:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no big deal. Yeah, the Smithsonian.
29:16
Speaker 2: I know, it's kind of crazy. I'm like, I'll never
29:18
Speaker 2: get them back, but I've got pictures of them and
29:20
Speaker 2: you can visit them.
29:21
Speaker 1: That's outstanding. That's outstanding. Okay, So you get some feet
29:24
Speaker 1: that do everything you need them to do right for
29:26
Speaker 1: the most part. Right fast forward, and you're snowboarding for
29:32
Speaker 1: a while again, and you are in a position where
29:37
Speaker 1: you understand that the Olympics are kind of in your reach.
29:42
Speaker 1: Talk to me about how that all kind of unfolded.
29:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting that I didn't think about ever,
29:50
Speaker 2: you know, being an Olympian until after I lost my legs.
29:53
Speaker 2: But also I think too, Snowboarding wasn't a part of
29:56
Speaker 2: the Olympic Games when I was younger, so it wasn't
29:58
Speaker 2: something that I really aspired for. And then but I
30:04
Speaker 2: saw a niche that needed to be filled. I saw
30:06
Speaker 2: that snowboarding wasn't in the Paralympic Games, and I also
30:11
Speaker 2: saw that there weren't many people snowboarding with prosthetic legs,
30:14
Speaker 2: and so I would go to different events to try
30:17
Speaker 2: to meet people different like disabled ski events, and everybody
30:20
Speaker 2: would be skiing, of course, and I'd be the only snowboarder,
30:23
Speaker 2: and I wanted to be able to, I guess, give
30:26
Speaker 2: the option and let people know you can snowboard on
30:28
Speaker 2: two prosthetic legs or a prosthetic leg if you want to.
30:31
Speaker 2: And so I ended up meeting my husband while I
30:34
Speaker 2: was on a snowboard trip in cress Abute, Colorado, and
30:39
Speaker 2: he had this background in philanthropy and his mom actually
30:43
Speaker 2: helped us start an organization called Adaptive Action Sports, And
30:47
Speaker 2: the whole idea was to, you know, we figured out
30:49
Speaker 2: how to get me involved in the sports that I loved,
30:51
Speaker 2: and figured out the types of equipment, and we wanted
30:54
Speaker 2: to help other people do the same. So we were
30:57
Speaker 2: a big part of helping in this sport row in
31:00
Speaker 2: the first place, like kind of creating this adaptive snowboard
31:03
Speaker 2: community because there were people out there around the world
31:06
Speaker 2: who were snowboarding with a prosthetic leg or two, we
31:09
Speaker 2: just weren't connected. So we kind of started it as
31:12
Speaker 2: this place. The organization we started as this place where
31:15
Speaker 2: people could connect and learn about different feet and different
31:18
Speaker 2: tips and tricks, and we would create events to pull
31:23
Speaker 2: all the adaptive snowboarders together and we started getting snowboarding
31:27
Speaker 2: into different competitions. We got adaptive snowboarding into the United
31:31
Speaker 2: States of America Snowboard Associations. Yeah, like competition, I guess
31:38
Speaker 2: you can say they work with all able bodied athletes.
31:41
Speaker 2: But we created an adaptive snowboard division to that and
31:46
Speaker 2: the idea was just to help grow this community of
31:48
Speaker 2: adaptive snowboarders. And then my husband was able to get
31:53
Speaker 2: snowboard adaptive snowboarding into the ESPN Winter X Games and
31:57
Speaker 2: we ran that, I believe for three years and that
32:00
Speaker 2: was a huge platform for us because we were riding
32:03
Speaker 2: on you know, the biggest snowboard course in the world
32:07
Speaker 2: with all the pros and able to show what we
32:10
Speaker 2: were capable of and what we were able to do.
32:12
Speaker 2: And then we were part of pushing to get snowboarding
32:16
Speaker 2: into the Paralympic Games. And so that the idea of
32:20
Speaker 2: getting snowboarding adaptive snowboarding into the Olympics and Paralympics was
32:25
Speaker 2: an ongoing process for quite a few years. Like that
32:28
Speaker 2: was a goal to get snowboarding into the Paralympic Games
32:31
Speaker 2: at some point, and in twenty eleven we found out
32:34
Speaker 2: that we had done that. What was that, Like it
32:39
Speaker 2: was out of the blue to be honest, because we
32:42
Speaker 2: were turned down so many times. And at one point
32:45
Speaker 2: we were sure that snowboarding was going to be in
32:49
Speaker 2: the Paralympics because there were World Cups that were happening
32:52
Speaker 2: at this point all over the world. And at that
32:54
Speaker 2: point too, I was showing up with other adaptive snowboarders.
32:57
Speaker 2: We didn't have sponsors. We were just you know, lying
33:00
Speaker 2: to New Zealand to compete in a World Cup and
33:02
Speaker 2: flying to France to compete in a World Cup, just
33:04
Speaker 2: doing this all out of our own pockets, without any
33:07
Speaker 2: real support or help. But there was a lot of us.
33:11
Speaker 2: And you were supposed to have to get snowboarding or
33:13
Speaker 2: any sport into the Olympic Games, you need, I believe,
33:16
Speaker 2: eight countries involved. They need to have athletes from eight countries,
33:20
Speaker 2: and we had that. So we were convinced that we
33:23
Speaker 2: were going to get snowboarding into the Games. And the
33:26
Speaker 2: next games were in Russia, and so even this kind
33:30
Speaker 2: of you know, Russian organizer came out and we were
33:34
Speaker 2: just waiting for him to tell us that we got
33:36
Speaker 2: it into the Games. And the next morning a press
33:39
Speaker 2: release went out that snowboarding wouldn't be in the Paralympic games,
33:43
Speaker 2: and so we all had our you know, our hopes
33:46
Speaker 2: up for a bit there and then I'm not sure
33:48
Speaker 2: what happened, because about eight months later, all of a sudden,
33:51
Speaker 2: we got another press release that said snowboarding was in
33:53
Speaker 2: the twenty fourteen Paralympic Games. So that was crazy, that
33:57
Speaker 2: was exciting. Of course, everybody, all that adapted snow orders
34:00
Speaker 2: were all on the phone with each other like, oh
34:01
Speaker 2: my god, this is real, like this is like now
34:04
Speaker 2: our sport is going to be official. And so it
34:07
Speaker 2: only gave us eighteen months to prepare for the games.
34:11
Speaker 2: And at that point I was I was snowboarding competitively,
34:16
Speaker 2: but on a pretty low level, Like I didn't. I
34:19
Speaker 2: didn't My feet were great, but not good enough to
34:22
Speaker 2: really grow as an athlete. I needed to have different equipment,
34:27
Speaker 2: and I kind of struggled with the feed I had
34:29
Speaker 2: made to do what I want to do. And so outside, yeah,
34:33
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I felt like I've got to
34:35
Speaker 2: be an Olympic athlete in eighteen months and ended up
34:39
Speaker 2: just you know, focusing all my energy that direction and
34:43
Speaker 2: literally started training every day and built like twenty pounds
34:47
Speaker 2: of muscle and got these new feet and just started
34:52
Speaker 2: competing everywhere I could, and made it to the Games
34:55
Speaker 2: and came home with a bronze medal.
34:57
Speaker 1: And he said, it's so casually. It's like I and
35:00
Speaker 1: I added twenty pounds of muscles. Well, it just happened.
35:02
Speaker 1: I went to kmart, I think, yeah, what do you
35:05
Speaker 1: have to do beside snowboarding to kind of make those
35:07
Speaker 1: kind of games.
35:09
Speaker 2: So I did a lot of weightlifting because I also
35:11
Speaker 2: I'm naturally pretty thin, and having two prosthetic legs, you
35:15
Speaker 2: burn up to sixty percent more calories than the average person.
35:19
Speaker 1: Wow, because you're constantly lifting that extra weight.
35:21
Speaker 2: Working yeah, and using other muscles to compensate. So I
35:25
Speaker 2: was really thin. I mean I was like one hundred
35:28
Speaker 2: and five pounds or something. And speed as your friend,
35:32
Speaker 2: and the more weight you have then the faster you
35:34
Speaker 2: go on a snowboard. And so I wanted to just
35:37
Speaker 2: be the strongest that I could be, And all of
35:39
Speaker 2: a sudden, sponsors started coming out of nowhere. I got
35:42
Speaker 2: sponsored by Coca Cola and Gosh, got sponsored by Kellogg's
35:46
Speaker 2: and some of the biggest Olympic sponsors chose me to sponsor,
35:51
Speaker 2: which was amazing, And all of a sudden, I just realized, well,
35:54
Speaker 2: I have all the support in the world to be
35:56
Speaker 2: the best that I can be, and I'm going to
35:58
Speaker 2: use this time to be the best that i can be.
36:01
Speaker 2: And so I also though at that time, put a
36:04
Speaker 2: lot of pressure on myself because I had been a
36:07
Speaker 2: face to the sport and now this is our opportunity
36:13
Speaker 2: to share it with the world, and I didn't want
36:16
Speaker 2: to let anybody down. And so there was just a
36:20
Speaker 2: lot of pressure, Yeah, a lot of pressure to represent
36:23
Speaker 2: and also you want the Olympic and Paralympic committee to know,
36:29
Speaker 2: like this was a good idea of getting the adaptive
36:30
Speaker 2: snowboarding in here, Like we know what we're doing, we're pros.
36:33
Speaker 1: But I think it's really beautiful that you're saying, like
36:35
Speaker 1: they chose me, like out of everyone they could have sponsored,
36:38
Speaker 1: like they chose me. Well, like, take a step back
36:39
Speaker 1: and understand that you've been putting in the work. Yeah,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know, like it didn't just happen because.
36:45
Speaker 2: Right out of the blue, exactly right.
36:47
Speaker 1: So you get on the podium, which must have been outrageous,
36:50
Speaker 1: and then a few years later you do it again.
36:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so the first time was it's just
37:00
Speaker 2: really emotional because all these years went into learning to walk,
37:04
Speaker 2: learning to snowboard, trying to figure my legs out, growing
37:07
Speaker 2: the community, getting it into the games, and all of
37:11
Speaker 2: those emotions kind of came to me as I was
37:13
Speaker 2: in the stargates for my last run, like, yeah, it
37:18
Speaker 2: makes me want to cry, yeah, because it was just
37:22
Speaker 2: like I felt so grateful and like, oh my gosh,
37:24
Speaker 2: if something doesn't exist, you can create it, you can
37:27
Speaker 2: build it, you can make it happen. So I was
37:31
Speaker 2: just really proud of myself and proud of all the
37:34
Speaker 2: other athletes involved, and proud of what we built. And
37:38
Speaker 2: to try to keep those emotions together when you're competing
37:43
Speaker 2: is really hard because your emotions can kind of break
37:45
Speaker 2: you down, and I needed to use them to make
37:50
Speaker 2: me the strongest I've ever been, you know.
37:52
Speaker 1: And it's so beautiful that you have that kind of
37:54
Speaker 1: inner dialogue with yourself because I think for a lot
37:56
Speaker 1: of people during really tough or stressful times, it's easy
38:00
Speaker 1: to feel overwhelmed.
38:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh absolutely, But I think too when I go
38:06
Speaker 2: back to my hospital days, I learned to compartmentalize because
38:11
Speaker 2: I had so much going on. I had lost my legs,
38:14
Speaker 2: lost my kidneys, lost the hearing in my left ear.
38:16
Speaker 1: That's something we didn't touch on that.
38:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it two years after you lost your
38:20
Speaker 2: legs that I had a kidney transfer. Yeah yeah, i'd
38:24
Speaker 2: say or a year and a half after, and I
38:26
Speaker 2: lost my kidneys through the whole meningitis process, because yeah,
38:30
Speaker 2: my kidneys were hit really hard. And then my dad
38:33
Speaker 2: gave me one of his kidneys about a year and
38:35
Speaker 2: a half after my twenty first birthday.
38:38
Speaker 1: That's insane. Also that he was a match for you.
38:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were almost twins as far as matches go,
38:43
Speaker 2: which is really rare for a parent and a child.
38:46
Speaker 2: Usually you get kind of half the genes from your
38:49
Speaker 2: mom and half the genes from your dad. But my
38:51
Speaker 2: dad and I were something like five out of six
38:54
Speaker 2: match and a twin and six out of six, so
38:56
Speaker 2: it was amazing. And yeah, so yeah, there's just a
39:02
Speaker 2: lot of emotion that went into, you know, that last
39:06
Speaker 2: run that I did, and I'm so grateful I came
39:11
Speaker 2: out with the bronze medal. I was the only a
39:13
Speaker 2: double leg amputeue competitive rider. You know, I'm running against
39:16
Speaker 2: girls who have their legs but have some sort of impairment,
39:19
Speaker 2: but have their legs or have one prosthetic legs. So
39:22
Speaker 2: at that time I was plenty happy to come in with,
39:25
Speaker 2: you know, bronze medal, just making the podium. But it's
39:30
Speaker 2: different that time than it was this time in Korea.
39:34
Speaker 2: So for so cheap, I put a lot of pressure
39:37
Speaker 2: on myself to represent and to represent the sport, and
39:41
Speaker 2: I was quite stressed out because of that, like constantly
39:47
Speaker 2: working on my legs and I'm a perfectionist, and they
39:49
Speaker 2: weren't good enough and I could feel what I needed
39:52
Speaker 2: my legs to do, but I didn't have the equipment
39:54
Speaker 2: to do it, and so I felt like I was
39:55
Speaker 2: just I had this athlete inside of me that wanted
39:58
Speaker 2: to blossom, but my legs when it let me, And
40:01
Speaker 2: so that was frustrating for me. Whereas this time actually
40:05
Speaker 2: going into the Games, I didn't put that pressure on myself.
40:09
Speaker 2: I've gone on to do so much outside of snowboarding
40:11
Speaker 2: as well that for me, snowboarding is just one thing
40:14
Speaker 2: that I do, It's not everything. And I went in
40:18
Speaker 2: with a much more open heart and gave myself time
40:22
Speaker 2: to work on my legs and took the pressure completely
40:24
Speaker 2: off and ended up doing better than ever. Really, So
40:30
Speaker 2: it's kind of amazing how that happens.
40:32
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing. As we both like sit here
40:35
Speaker 1: wiping tears from our face. I'm trying to be sensitive
40:38
Speaker 1: for your time. So I'm going to ask you two
40:39
Speaker 1: more questions. First question, best advice that you have ever
40:44
Speaker 1: been given in your career.
40:47
Speaker 2: So, outside of snowboarding, I'm a motivational speaker, and that
40:53
Speaker 2: is that's a bit more of a career for me
40:56
Speaker 2: than even snowboarding. I speak year round and the nice
40:59
Speaker 2: snowboarding half of the year, and so I think one
41:02
Speaker 2: of the best pieces of advice I was given was
41:05
Speaker 2: from a speaking coach. I was invited to do a
41:08
Speaker 2: TED talk and worked like crazy on this talk, worked
41:12
Speaker 2: for three months on the short eight minute talk. Once
41:15
Speaker 2: again put tons of pressure on myself and I had
41:18
Speaker 2: never really shared my story before, like I'd never It
41:20
Speaker 2: was so hard for me to say I have two
41:23
Speaker 2: prosthetic legs or I lost my legs, like I'd break
41:25
Speaker 2: down and cry. It was just this weird, sensitive thing
41:28
Speaker 2: for me. And I remember I was backstage and I
41:30
Speaker 2: was talking to my speaking coach and I said, oh
41:32
Speaker 2: my god, what if I cry? And She's like, well,
41:35
Speaker 2: if you cry, you're meant to cry, and the rest
41:37
Speaker 2: of the audience will cry with you. And it's all
41:39
Speaker 2: about being vulnerable, Like the more vulnerable you can be,
41:44
Speaker 2: the more open we can be with each other, and
41:46
Speaker 2: that's where people connect. And so I ended up going
41:49
Speaker 2: out and doing this speech and my voice cracked and
41:52
Speaker 2: I had tears in my eyes, and I look in
41:53
Speaker 2: the audience and everybody else's crying as well. And that
41:57
Speaker 2: speech ended up going viral and it completely changed my life,
42:00
Speaker 2: and I ended up going into a full international corporate
42:05
Speaker 2: speaking career, which has changed my life.
42:09
Speaker 1: How does it feel to connect? I'm breaking my own
42:12
Speaker 1: roles because now there's three questions. How does it feel
42:15
Speaker 1: to be able to connect with so many, whether it's
42:18
Speaker 1: young women or young men as well, who have disabilities
42:22
Speaker 1: of their own, and to be that kind of mentor for.
42:24
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, it's amazing. But I think what's even bigger
42:27
Speaker 2: than that is the people who reach out to me.
42:29
Speaker 2: I'd say fifty percent have disabilities. Fifty percent don't have
42:33
Speaker 2: physical disabilities, but maybe have gone through something in their lives,
42:36
Speaker 2: like even a divorce. I mean, people who reach out
42:39
Speaker 2: to me are like, your story helped me get through
42:41
Speaker 2: some of the toughest times in my life, whatever that
42:43
Speaker 2: might be for them, And so it's amazing, I mean,
42:47
Speaker 2: and once again going back to being vulnerable, if I
42:50
Speaker 2: didn't share kind of my deepest, darkest spaces, then I
42:54
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to connect with all these people who
42:56
Speaker 2: are dealing with similar things. So when it comes to
43:00
Speaker 2: speaking or writing my book or even my social media,
43:04
Speaker 2: for me, I'm constantly trying to, I guess, wipe off
43:08
Speaker 2: the shell and the facade and like show what's really
43:12
Speaker 2: underneath and the struggles and the challenges and give insight
43:16
Speaker 2: on what one thing or another might be like. And
43:19
Speaker 2: it may have to do with my legs, or it
43:20
Speaker 2: may have to do with some other challenge in my life.
43:23
Speaker 2: And that's what's allowed me to connect with.
43:25
Speaker 1: So many people and be so authentic. You talk a
43:28
Speaker 1: lot about the pressures that can come with being an
43:31
Speaker 1: athlete of your level. What has been one of the
43:35
Speaker 1: most difficult, what some people might label as failures that
43:39
Speaker 1: you have encountered that has taught you the biggest lesson?
43:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like with snowboarding, there's constant failures,
43:50
Speaker 2: like you come and last in a World Cup where
43:53
Speaker 2: you just you know, there's I'm not the best in
43:56
Speaker 2: the world when it comes to snowboarding. I'm really not.
44:00
Speaker 2: But I do the best I can with what I have,
44:02
Speaker 2: and oftentimes that's what gets me ahead, is just using
44:04
Speaker 2: everything I have. And so I don't know if I
44:08
Speaker 2: can say like it, because there's non stop failures. I
44:10
Speaker 2: don't think I can really pick one moment that changed
44:15
Speaker 2: my life. But I will say that outside of snowboarding,
44:18
Speaker 2: I had a major missed opportunity that felt like a failure,
44:23
Speaker 2: but that ultimately, you know, one door closed and another
44:28
Speaker 2: door opened. So I had been I've played around a
44:32
Speaker 2: little bit with acting before I became a competitive snowboarder.
44:35
Speaker 2: I lived in la and I was taking acting classes,
44:37
Speaker 2: and so it's something that's kind of always been a
44:39
Speaker 2: part of me of what I've wanted to do. And
44:42
Speaker 2: then let me think, oh, it was before soci It
44:46
Speaker 2: was just about six months before Sochi. I got this
44:48
Speaker 2: opportunity to work with Samuel L. Jackson on this big
44:53
Speaker 2: film Casual Really Yeah, And I was flown out to
44:58
Speaker 2: London and worked with Warner Brothers for a month. I
45:02
Speaker 2: was supposed to go out there just for an audition,
45:04
Speaker 2: ended up staying for an entire month and working with
45:07
Speaker 2: all the casts and basically got this role, and this
45:11
Speaker 2: role was made for me. It was amazing because I
45:13
Speaker 2: was athletic and I was fit, and I knew how
45:16
Speaker 2: to use my legs and I was actually doing a
45:18
Speaker 2: lot of martial arts on my legs and backflips all
45:23
Speaker 2: this stuff, and it all played out really well with
45:26
Speaker 2: this character that I was supposed to play. And it's
45:29
Speaker 2: called the movies called Kingsmen, and so there's I think
45:33
Speaker 2: they're on the second edition of Kingsmen that have come out.
45:36
Speaker 2: But anyway, so I got this role and I was like,
45:38
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is my big break. I remember
45:40
Speaker 2: flying home first class with Champagne and just being like,
45:44
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is it, Like my life is
45:46
Speaker 2: amazing and it's happened. And then I come home, we
45:51
Speaker 2: have these special legs made and my bags are packed
45:55
Speaker 2: and I'm supposed to go back out to start filming
45:58
Speaker 2: and they let me go.
46:00
Speaker 1: And it was.
46:02
Speaker 2: Massive amounts of emotion. I was so heartbroken and I
46:08
Speaker 2: had no idea, you know what. I thought, that's it.
46:11
Speaker 2: I lost my big break. I can't imagine a better
46:13
Speaker 2: role for me than this like athletic role that I
46:16
Speaker 2: was supposed to be in and I remember I was
46:18
Speaker 2: at my prosthetic shop and my prosthetists said, well, it
46:21
Speaker 2: just means that there's something better around the corner for you,
46:23
Speaker 2: and I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, it thinks, but no,
46:26
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be any bigger than
46:27
Speaker 2: like this massive blockbuster film. But there was. There was
46:31
Speaker 2: something bigger around the corner for me, which was Dancing
46:33
Speaker 2: with the Stars.
46:35
Speaker 1: And I cry every time I see your routine with
46:40
Speaker 1: Derek huff Ah, Oh my god.
46:43
Speaker 2: That's it. People cry even when on our happy dances,
46:47
Speaker 2: like with the Happy you know, our salsa dances, people.
46:49
Speaker 1: Were like, I cried, yeah, but only human was like.
46:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that one was. That one was amazing. And
46:57
Speaker 2: I had no idea when I went on the show
46:58
Speaker 2: we would do something like that, that we'd actually dig
47:01
Speaker 2: that deep and be that vulnerable and create something that emotional.
47:07
Speaker 2: I thought I was going on and learning to chotch off,
47:09
Speaker 2: you know. All of a sudden, it was like I
47:12
Speaker 2: had to share, like once again, kind of the deepest
47:14
Speaker 2: parts of my life, and it was amazing.
47:18
Speaker 1: Was it fun to be a beginner again?
47:19
Speaker 2: It's something it was, Yeah, it was, but it was
47:22
Speaker 2: also once again tons of pressure. I mean, you're in
47:24
Speaker 2: front of millions of people every week. It was like
47:27
Speaker 2: doing the Paralympic Games every single week, like you've got
47:30
Speaker 2: one shot, don't mess it up. Everybody's watching. You know,
47:33
Speaker 2: if you don't do well, you're out. So there, and
47:36
Speaker 2: I put a ton of pressure on myself because I thought,
47:40
Speaker 2: I'm I was the first double leaking amputative ever do
47:44
Speaker 2: anything like that, and to be on network TV doing
47:46
Speaker 2: something like that, and I thought, I need to represent
47:50
Speaker 2: what the possibilities are. And I'm still trying to figure
47:53
Speaker 2: out week by week what the possibilities are. But I
47:56
Speaker 2: didn't want to let anybody down. I wanted to be
48:00
Speaker 2: able to show what's possible. But I didn't even know
48:02
Speaker 2: what was possible until I was in it doing it
48:05
Speaker 2: and had no idea that you know, we'd almost win
48:09
Speaker 2: and make it to the end and it would change
48:11
Speaker 2: my life forever.
48:12
Speaker 1: Once again, it's nice to have a lot of those
48:16
Speaker 1: moments throughout our lives. Right, you have one chance to
48:21
Speaker 1: put one last Instagram into the world before they completely
48:26
Speaker 1: shut your social media counts down. You have the opportunity
48:30
Speaker 1: to say one more thing to all of these people
48:33
Speaker 1: that are following you. What is it that you say
48:37
Speaker 1: to that?
48:38
Speaker 2: Jeez, I think I would say that you could be
48:45
Speaker 2: anything you want to be at any time you want
48:47
Speaker 2: to be. It like there are no rules, you know.
48:52
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of cliche that we're the only
48:55
Speaker 2: ones that put limits on ourselves, but we are. It's
48:59
Speaker 2: like any things possible if you work hard enough, if
49:02
Speaker 2: you're passionate enough, and you believe.
49:04
Speaker 1: I wish beyond wishes that we had so much more
49:07
Speaker 1: time to sit here today. Thank you so much for
49:10
Speaker 1: taking a time out of your morning to hang out
49:12
Speaker 1: with me.
49:12
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming all the way out here.
49:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, man to me, dude, anytime the next time, we'll
49:18
Speaker 1: have to go do something really active and fun. Please
49:21
Speaker 1: take a moment to leave a quick review by clicking
49:23
Speaker 1: the link with the description to this episode. We all
49:26
Speaker 1: face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear about yours.
49:30
Speaker 1: Reach Out to me at Emily at Hurdle dot us.
49:32
Speaker 1: Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle
49:36
Speaker 1: Podcast and Amy, why don't you tell me where they
49:39
Speaker 1: can find you on social media?
49:41
Speaker 2: On social I have the same handle for Twitter, Instagram,
49:45
Speaker 2: and Facebook and it's Amy Purty Girl gu RL.
49:49
Speaker 1: I love that Amy pretty Girl. I'm at Emily a body,
49:54
Speaker 1: Another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time. The last time.