If your life were a book, and you were the author, how would you want your story to go? This is the question that changed her life forever - Amy Purdy.
A young American woman who lost both legs, spleen, both kidneys, and hearing in the left ear in less than a month!
Who is Amy Purdy?
Purdy is considered one of the most commercially successful Paralympic/adaptive athletes in the world.
She has marketing partnerships and agreements with Toyota, Pfizer, The Hartford, Element, Freedom Innovations and has had previous relationships with Kelloggs and Coca-Cola. Also, she is represented by Chicago Sports & Entertainment Partners.
Yes, that’s great, but who exactly is she?
She is an American actress, model, motivational speaker, clothing designer and author.
She is a 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist, 2018 Paralympics silver medalist, and co-founder of Adaptive Action Sports. Early in her life when she first graduated from her high school at the age of 19, she became a massage therapist, and during this period of her career, she was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis (a vaccine-preventable blood infection) that cost her losing vital organs.
So, what she did to overcome her illness?
As the time passed, Amy started to put herself together and went on her life-changing journey.
She got back again to her snowboarding, had some obstacles in which her legs could not let her move properly.
As a result, she searched a year for a leg designer to make her customized legs that can optimize her movement to the snowboarding aquarius.
By the age of 21, she got her first designed legs and a kidney from her father. Then she got back to her old normal routine, her work, her school, and her snowboarding.
What is next?
In 2005 she co-founded a non-profit organization for youth and young adults with physical disability so they can get involved with action sports.
And by February 2011 she won 2 back to back World Cup gold medals which made her the highest rank adaptive female snowboarder in the world.
Amy’s legs haven’t disabled her, in fact, they forced her to rely on her imagination and to believe in the possibilities ahead of her.
Our imagination can be used as tools for breaking through borders, because in our minds we can do anything, 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.
1- Disability is in the mind, we can do anything if we push our borders to the limit.
2- Sometimes the borders that hold you from doing what you love, are actually chances for you to do it in the best way possible.
3- Amy Purdy lost both legs, spleen, both kidneys, and hearing in the left ear in less than a month. But, you still have them, what is holding you?
Written by ENGY HASSAN