I made a booking, and weeks later my friend Chris and my mom drove me out to the airport, all 80 pounds of me covered in a plaster body cast in a baggy pair of overalls.

And I spent every moment I could out at that flying school, way out of my comfort zone, all these young guys that wanted to be Qantas pilots, you know, and little old hop along me in first my plaster cast, and then my steel brace, my baggy overalls, my bag of medication and catheters and my limp, and they used to look at me and think, Oh, who is she kidding? She's never going to be able to do this.