I wear my prosthetics legs every day, and when I train in the gym, I call them my Lamborghini, because both legs and sockets, which extend up to my hips to keep the legs on via a suction seal, cost about $305,815.
I'm an athlete, yes, but I'm also a woman. I'm someone who kind of, in a way, lost touch with that part of myself after I lost my legs, because there are certain feminine traits you lose when you have prosthetic legs.
The first time the doctors put on my prosthetic legs they made me much taller than I'd ever been. I then remember the doctor saying 'we need to shorten this man' and we all were in hysterics.
In 2008, Pistorius was the only guy who could run under 22 seconds at 200 m. So I said I would run as fast as that in London. I practised; I trained.
First time you step on these new legs, it's bloody hard. It's painful on your pelvic bones. But every day I get more of a feel for where my feet are.
I'm helping people do things they haven't done since they had two good legs, and that's worth it right there.
I have two prosthetic legs. This is my life; what am I going to do with it? And it's put me on this amazing journey. I can look back and be completely grateful and say I would never want to change anything.
If the legs did provide such an advantage that some of the people are claiming they did, then there would be a lot more amputees using the exact same prosthetic legs I have, running the exact same times I have - and that's not the case.
Out of the tens of thousands of prosthetic legs they've made, there's never been any 400-meter athletes run under 50 seconds. So, if this was such a technologically advanced prosthetic leg, then how come not everyone's qualifying, or coming close to the qualification time, then?
Putting on my legs is like putting on my shoes. I understand that's how some people might think differently, but I hope that in London, their perceptions open up.
When I originally started looking at different prosthetic components, most of them were just set up for walking.
The biggest challenge during competition is keeping my real legs warm with clothing, because I have poor circulation in the tissue around the amputated areas.
After I lost my legs, all I wanted to do was snowboard again. I remember spending an entire year on the computer, looking for 'adaptive snowboarders' or 'snowboard legs' or 'adaptive snowboard schools' or just something that I could connect to. I already knew how to snowboard - I just needed to find the right legs.
