Through my illness I learned rejection. I was written off. That was the moment I thought, Okay, game on. No prisoners. Everybody's going down.

There's no rule, no law, no regulation that says you can't come back. So I have every right to come back.

It works better for me to be nervous and hungry.

Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.

For whatever reason, maybe it's because of my story, but people associate Livestrong with exercise and physical fitness, health and lifestyle choices like that.

It's tough to be a 15- or 16-year-old athlete competing around the country. There's tension, there's media. I had no idea what I was getting into.

If I can't face my accusers, that's a joke. We did that in medieval times.