I was brought up in New Zealand and Australia. Aged 16, I stowed away from NZ to the USA on the US Coast Guard Icebreaker Polar Star. On my return to NZ I became pregnant, and got a job as New Zealand's first teenaged pregnant G-string wearing fire-eating stripper. When my belly got too big to eat fire in a G string, I moved to the street outside the club and became a prostitute. Aged 20, following a suicide attempt, I turned my life around and went back to High School. From there I enrolled in medical school, and am now a medical doctor and writer. I was inspired to write as a way of sorting out my life and making certain I broke negative patterns of behaviour. I still live in New Zealand, where I divide my time between my medical practice and motivational speaking / writing tours. For more information on my life, read my international best selling books 'Bent Not Broken' and 'Life On The Line'.

Mother of two sons.