Paralysis doesn't stop swimmer from going for the gold

At first glance you probably don't even see what makes Mallory different from the other swimmers in the race at the Highland Park pool. It's not until Mallory gets out of the water that her challenge becomes clear.

"I think that's almost her best time," Twin Cities Swim Team coach Jim Andersen said to his swimmers.

Mallory, who just swam one of her best times, can't walk.

"She had the shingles," says Mallory's dad Chris. "Then she had this other, I'll call it a disease. It was called post herpetic neuralgia, which was an inflammation of the nerve endings."

Mallory treated the inflammation with a series of epidural injections.

"She would have the epidural, numb up and then it would go away in the course of an hour or two. Then she'd head on home and go about her merry way and have this long-lasting relief in the area. The third time she had it done, it numbed up and it never unnumbed," Chris said.

"I remember them admitting me," Mallory explained. "Give it a few hours, give it a day, give a few days, give it a week, give it a few weeks."

"We spent a lot of time researching, calling," Mallory's mom added.

Everyone worked but nothing changed.

"At some point, you just have to live your life. She came to us and said I need to live my life. I need to move on," Ann added.

Mallory was done with "why me?" and ready for "what now?"

The question brought Mallory to the University of Minnesota Aquatics Center, where Paralympic athletes were in training for the Beijing games. What she saw made the former high school swimmer wonder, could she be competitive again?

"We had no clue if Mallory was going to sink," Chris said of that first time back in the pool. "We didn't know what was going to happen. But actually, she got in the water and she just took off."

"I started swimming and I remember getting to the wall and stopping and looking at all of them and I was like, what do I do now?" Mallory said smiling.

What 20-year-old Mallory and her Twin Cities Swim Team coach Jim Andersen have done is totally reinvent her swimming technique.

"It's a matter of trial and error," Andersen explained.

"It's completely changed," Mallory said.

From the way she enters the pool, to how Mallory makes a turn and when she takes a breath, it's all been modified.

"If I can keep my breath and hold it, I can just go through the water like this," Mallory said, holding her hand flat. "Versus when I breathe I kind of teeter tot."

It's a new style, that's already making a big splash.

"I broke the record in the 100 fly," Mallory said, explaining the moment she broke the Paralympics’ record. "I went under the water to scream because I went two seconds faster than the American record."

Yes, she's not just winning races, Mallory's already setting records.

"I was on cloud nine. It was an amazing feeling," Mallory continued.

It's amazing for everyone involved.

"To see the wheelchair at the side of the pool. To see her body stretched out in the water," Ann said of watching Mallory in the pool.

"To this day, she makes fun of me for going to her swim practices for going and watching her swim. And I still do it. And I still have the same joy as I did that very first day," Jim added.

"There's something about like, the rush you get when you race," Mallory continued.

No longer defined by her challenges, Mallory intends to be known for her achievements.

"I want the podium. I want a gold medal. I want to hear the national anthem. I want all of that," Mallory said of what she's working for now.

If she has it her way, from what was Mallory's darkest hour will one day come shiny Olympic gold in London in 2012.

"If I could get more than one that would be nice," Mallory said. "There's not going to be a limit on that. We're just going to go and see what happens."

Limits? Despite what's happened to her, limits just aren't Mallory's style.

"Things happen and doors close and doors open. You have to be willing to look in the right places," Mallory concluded.

Mallory's next races will be later this month in Edmonton, where she'll compete for a spot on the World's Team. Mal, as she's known to family and friends, also hopes to join the U.S. Residential Paralympics Swim Team. If she makes it, she'd live and train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs ahead of the London Paralympics in 2012.