It all began in 17 years ago

and I've written this sort of thing time and time again and yet I've never completed a book. I want to though because I have a tale to tell.

I remember rollerblading down a very steep hill towards the downtown in my city. I had to bail and slide into the bushes to avoid hitting a car, but I was addicted to the speed. I loved it to rollerblade to school every day and I was on my way to theatre rehearsal.

I have been cast in a play called the mystery of Edwin Drood and after years of being an extra or multiple extras, I had a lead role. I was so excited to rehearse and perform with my friends over the summer, I remember trying to do backflips because we had just seen Mission impossible. We had so much fun doing those summer plays.

But I missed out on all of that. I didn't get to participate in any of it because that weekend I went on a business trip to Wisconsin and it did not go as planned. The weekend was amazing, it was fantastic connecting with entrepreneurs at a business conference I attended. But on the final day just before we planned to leave, fate intervened.

The accident was a positive thing in my life. I no longer worry about the little things, instead I take life one day at a time. You have to remember to spend time with your family and your friends. It was their support during my time of need that got me through it. That afternoon while riding a Sea-Doo I was struck by a 17ft speedboat and my life changed forever.

There is an island that I can see from Google Street view that I remember from my ride around the lake, but what exactly happened I only remember parts of. The rest was been told to me over the years and I've pieced it together.

Two vehicle operators made a mistake that afternoon and I was one of them. I paid a big price and so did my family for an innocent mistake. It was extremely busy on the lake that day, I didn't even know how small the lake was, but even Google satellite imagery reveals how busy it can be on any particular summer afternoon.

When I was struck by the boat I was pushed underwater by the force, I had turned my Sea-Doo at the last moment and stopped dead in the water. My right arm snapped over my head when I was hit by the boat. The seadoo rolled underneath because witnesses saw the Sea-Doo after it hit the propeller.

I was wearing a lifejacket so I surfaced, but the situation looked extremely bad. I had friends on the boat nearby who raced over and jumped in the water. They took me to a nearby dock where a former paramedic already had their equipment. A nearby ambulance was able to take me 40 minutes away to the Mayo health clinic.

I was in critical condition and my family was told I was not going to make it through the night, and I spent a week in emergency while they tried to stabilize me. I had lost a lot of blood and my lungs had been crushed by the impact of the speedboat, and there weren't a lot of options.

Several doctors who were at the Mayo clinic got together and tried to find a way to save me. They decided to try this experimental technology for infants, which provides oxygen to the blood. There wasn't much time so they broke my chest sternum open and attached ECMO directly to my heart.

Those were dark days and it's hard for me to write about even now, seventeen years later. I was in a whole different world, it was my family who had to sit by my bedside and experience five weeks of fear and not knowing if I was going to make it. The after 3 days they closed me up and moved the machine to my neck and leg. My family and friends at home prayed for me. I was losing too much blood after a week and they had to take me off ECMO. Then they had to wait.

I was in a whole other dimension of reality.

June 11th 2000, the last photo taken of me before the accident