But during her recovery, her friend sent her a video of Winter Paralympian Amy Purdy on American Dancing with the Stars. Purdy is a bilateral amputee, she lost both her legs below the knee after contracting bacterial meningitis.

"Immediately I was like 'well, my life is going to be alright'," Monique said.

"If she can do that without two legs, I'm going to be okay with one."

One month after her final amputation, which was on her right leg just below the knee, Monique commenced hydrotherapy. However, when the idea of hydrotherapy was first brought up by her brother, she wasn't keen on the idea.

"I shut him down pretty hard," Monique said.

Mainly because she didn't want to do 5am mornings again but she came around to the idea after discovering she could have a mermaid leg.

However, swimming wasn't new to Monique, when she was young she aimed at qualifying for the Australian Age Championships in her pet event the 100m Butterfly but after missing out on qualifying three years in a row, she decided to stop swimming. 

When she was in hydrotherapy she didn't have to wear a prosthetic, she had more mobility and she couldn't stop smiling, it was one of her favourite things to do. After six weeks in hospital and seven in rehab, Monique was discharged and decided to join Melbourne Vicentre Swim Club to build her skills. 

During her time training, her coach asked her where she wanted to go.

"I said 'as far as we can, let's see what I can do because I was intrigued, I had a new body and I didn't know what it could do," Monique said.

Exactly one year after her accident, Monique was announced as a member of the Australian Dolphins Swim Team, heading to the IPC World Championships to be held in Glasgow. 

"I was in awe," she said.

"Being on that team I was surrounded by so many amazing people, the Dolphins were such a huge part of my rehabilitation," Monique said.

Up until then, the accident had been dominating her life and everything had come back to what happened. During a team bonding session, they were playing a get to know you game where they had to write down three things.

All she could think about was things related to the incident. 

"I couldn't write those things down because everyone in the room had their own story," Monique said.

"Being on that team made me detach from what happened and focus on what I could achieve," she said.