She Lost Both Legs and Built a Life Beyond What Most People Dream | Amy Purdy

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:12Amy Purdy:I honestly just entered the hospital feeling really sick and had no idea that I'd be, I mean, I was on my deathbed like within 24 hours. I was absolutely fighting for my life and put into an induced coma because they didn't know what I had at this point. So I entered the hospital. They had no idea what I had except that I was in septic shock. All my organs were failing and hemorrhaging. Everything but my heart and my brain. So all my other organs were hemorrhaging and not working. And so they put me on life support right away. Told my parents I had less than a 2 % chance of living. This is in 24 hours, within those next day.

0:48Yes, within the next day.

0:51Amy Purdy:and then I was immediately put into an induced coma because my body was completely shutting down and that's how they try to kind of stabilize you a little bit. It calms you down a little bit. Yeah, so you're not fighting so hard. Interesting. Yep. What does that mean? They just give you a drug or what do they do? Yes. How do you go in and... They do. They give you some kind of, I forget what it's called, but they give you some kind of thing in your IV And I remember my, it was a really big deal. You just go to sleep. Yeah. My, it was really hard for my parents. You can imagine because, uh, you know, they didn't know if they'd see me again.

1:27Amy Purdy:So this was like, I remember I actually was awake when my dad signed the papers to like basically put me on life support. So you may not wake up, but this is the only option. Essentially. You're going to, you'll die if we don't do this. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So, um, because I wasn't breathing, not that I wasn't breathing good. I was gasping for air because my lungs had failed or had collapsed. So I just remember gasping for air and that my dad was signing this paperwork and everyone was crying. And that was like my last memory. You guys never. Oh, my gosh. Were you freaking out? Were you scared? You know what?

2:09Amy Purdy:There's always humor in tragedy. Of course. And I remember it feeling so surreal. like an outer body experience and thinking, you guys, aren't we taking this a little seriously? You know, even though I was, I didn't, but it was in, it was kind of in the back of my head, even though I was like gasping for air and I'm like, I'm dying, I'm dying. You know, but in the back of my mind, somehow there was this disconnect of like, everybody here thinks I'm going to die. And isn't that a little, um, I don't know, serious for the situation. There's something I and maybe it was like a separation of of you know, like you're I don't know It's like a survival thing of not thinking that you think you feel like it You feel like you're dying, but then you're questioning am I really dying, you know, so Yeah, it was so I remember that and actually my feet were really really cold because I had septic shock.

3:11Amy Purdy:So you go into septic shock when your body pulls blood from your extremities to save your organs. And that's what was happening. So I was losing circulation to my hands, to my feet, to my nose, my ears, and my chin. Like tingly feeling or like numbing? I mean, I had no feeling freezing cold and purple. Wow. Like just literally overnight. Like it happened really, really fast. But my feet hurt so bad. So right before they put me into this induced coma, I asked my dad or I like demanded to see my feet because I remember saying my feet hurt so bad. Can I see what's going on? And my dad was like, your feet are the least of our worries here.

3:52Amy Purdy:But I demanded to see my feet. And so my dad pulled the sheets back and my feet were literally purple. Oh, wow. Why do they hurt? Yeah, right. They were losing all circulation. And then I went into the induced coma. And so that's my very last memory. Oh, my gosh. I'm surprised you couldn't even remember that. You know, I remember so much of that time. You know, you would think that you would kind of black it out because it's a traumatic time. I remember so many details. It's really interesting. So, yeah, I ended up in that induced coma for about two and a half weeks. And then you're kind of in and out, you know, like I was awake.

4:30Amy Purdy:And then all of a sudden you kind of slip back into it. You're in and out for a little bit for, say, another like week or so. And then but I still was on life support when I woke up. I still because I was in kidney failure, my spleen had burst and was removed. My kind of everything was out of whack. And so I was still hooked up to machines when I awoke from the coma. I still had tubes down my throat because my lungs had collapsed and needed help breathing. And so I was awake during a period of time where I was hooked up to like a whole room of machines, but aware of what was going on. Oh my gosh.

5:05Amy Purdy:And, um, I, yeah, then I ultimately ended up losing both my legs below the knees, almost lost my hands. And, uh, that was from the septic shock. So they did everything they could to try to bring me out of that septic shock to try to get more circulation to my feet. Because that's just a natural, it's pretty amazing. It's a natural response to your body trying to save itself is your organs are failing. So let's pull blood from your extremities to save your organs. And that's just the body's natural response, which is pretty amazing. But because of that, I lost circulation to my legs and my hands.

5:41So when you woke up the first time, did you already lose your legs? No.

5:45Amy Purdy:So I woke up and my feet at this point were the bottoms of my feet were black. black. I mean, like, and my toes, like kind of like snowboarding, but too extreme. But yeah, I mean like frostbite really, like you just, I mean, yeah, they're the balls of my feet or the, the soles of my feet and my toes had just, I mean, zero circulation, the tops of my feet, they were dead. Absolutely. The tops of my feet were purple ish. And you know, they were at that point it actually wasn't. It was really weird. It was painful before, you know, when I first entered the hospital, but when I woke up from the coma, it wasn't painful.

6:31Amy Purdy:It was just confining. I just wanted to move my toes. I wanted to like feel the air between my toes and just felt like, you know, like I couldn't, I could, I could kind of move my feet. I could kind of move my toes, but I was every day losing the ability to do that.

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