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.