IF YOUR LIFE WERE A BOOK AND YOU WERE THE AUTHOR

Amy Purdy always knew she wanted to be a snowboarder. (Snowboarding involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to the rider's feet. It is also, incidentally, part of the Winter Olympics)

By age 19, she had it all figured out. She was going to snowboard, travel the world, and earn her living as a massage therapist. She would often daydream of travelling the world with her snowboard in one hand and massage table in the other.

But life had other plans.

One day she came home with what she thought was the flu, but within 24 hours, found herself in a hospital emergency room with only a 2% chance of survival! The doctors had diagnosed her with bacterial meningitis, a vaccine-preventable blood infection.

Amy’s body went into septic shock and before long, she lost her spleen, the hearing in her left ear, her kidney function, and both legs below the knees. But the doctors managed to save her life.

The next several months were the hardest of her life. As she tried to walk in her new prosthetic legs for the first time, she went into a deep depression. How was she ever going to be able to travel, snowboard and have all the adventures she had dreamed of? But in her deepest depths of despair, the seed of a thought planted itself in her mind and began to grow…

If my life were a book and I was the author, how would I want my story to go?

That is when she realized that even though one chapter of her life was now over, she could still write the next one! That is when she decided that it was time to – quite literally -- get back on her feet again.

After much experimentation, her prosthetist succeeded in creating a pair of artificial feet that she could snowboard in again, and within just four months, she was back on the snow slopes again (although things didn’t initially go as planned, and on one occasion, she traumatized all the other skiers on the hill when her artificial legs still attached to the snowboard came loose and went flying down the mountain with the rest of her still on top of the mountain!)

“I was so discouraged when that happened,” she admitted. But once again she asked herself and answered that life-defining question -- If my life were a book and I was the author, how would I want my story to go?

Amy's story turned out to be truly remarkable. She is, today, the top ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world. Through her NGO, she spends a good amount of time putting shoes on the feet of children living in poverty around the world, and helps those with physical challenges get involved with sports. She is also an actress, model, motivational speaker, fashion designer, and author!

Asked whether she would want to change anything about her life, Amy says she would not change a thing, because it was the darkest times of her life that helped her to discover her deepest and highest purpose.

Have a great week!

Team Anahat

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