Amy Van Dyken-Rouen, Olympic medaling swimmer, as released from Craig Hospital on Thursday, two months after she was injured in an ATV accident.

Amy Van Dyken-Rouen Leaves Hospital

Van Dyken-Rouen announced her released from the hospital, more than two months after she suffered her spinal injury, in a press conference Thursday morning.

"It's been a lot of work, absolutely," Van Dyken-Rouen said. "It's been a lot of smiles, and a lot of laughs and a lot of 'woo-hoos,' and a lot of singing. There's been a lot of tears shed for sure. This is not easy. And I don't want to portray the fact that because I have a smile on my face that it really is easy. It's really not."

Van Dyken-Rouen was a force in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, capturing four gold medals. She won two more at the Sydney Games four years later. For the erstwhile international swimmer, getting back into a pool for the first time has proved the most difficult part of her recovery process.

"The first time I went into the swimming pool was the hardest thing," Van Dyken-Rouen admitted. "Because I'm going in there as a spinal-cord injured individual who is supposed to be doing therapy in the pool, and I was like, 'I'm not doing therapy, I'm doing laps.' And they looked at me like, 'this is not what we're doing.'"

Van Dyken-Rouen is optimistic about what lies ahead for her, believing that the near-fatal accident has made her better. "I am a better person than before this injury," Van Dyken-Rouen said. "I feel like I'm going to do everything."

Prior to leaving the hospital, Van Dyken-Rouen shared her excitement with her signature enthusiasm on Twitter and Instagram. “Packing up and wearing my cool #AmysArmy hat my friend Sue made for me,” the athlete captioned a picture of herself with the hat emblazoned with a pink skull with hearts for eyes. “Thx @CraigHospital I'll see ya soon! Van Dyken-Rouen OUT!”

Back in June, Van Dyken-Rouen severed her spine in an ATV accident in Arizona. She was fortunate in that a broken vertebra “stopped within millimeter of rupturing her aorta," according to Swimming World magazine. Van Dyken-Rouen also managed to avoid any head trauma.