April Otwell
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Mon, Jun 29, 2015

6/29/2015

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My mom is down in her back right now so she cannot position me in my chair or do much at all. I feel so bad for her because I'm so heavy and she has to lift me up and help me get position me when I get messed up. I need to loose so much weight do that it's not so hard to take care of me.  It's not only me she has to take care of though. She has the four puppies, three cats, and all of my glider cages. I love them so much but my mom needs a break from taking care of me and the babies too. I'm not able to take care of myself or any of the animals. I need to start helping with my care but the animals too. 

I know I want to get on with my life, go to college, start driving, live on my own, and having a baby. 

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Things To Do

6/25/2015

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Here's my list of things to do:

1. Get a degree

2. Find a job

3. Get driveing lessons

4. Find high risk OB

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List

6/24/2015

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I have to wonder if this time I've put my goals up far to high. I want to be able to do things for myself like living on my own. I just read a story about a C-6 quadriplegic that lives in her own, having a baby, going to school, and drives! I hate to say this but I'm jealous. I want some independence so bad but I don't know how to get that for myself. I know I have to start to build up my strength, try to get more movement, and start to try to do more than what others do for me. 

The first thing I have to do is get this pressure sore healed before I can do anything. After that I need to lose some of my weight so that maybe I can start to learn how to transfer myself over. These will need to happen before I even get started on my other items on my list. I will not put the whole list here just in case something's don't happen the way I want them too. I have got to start acting my whole age because if I don't I may never learn to take care of myself. 

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Beauty and Self Loving

6/23/2015

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When my accident happened I weighted 180 pounds though you could not tell because I was five foot six inches. The fact that I'm in a wheelchair unable to do physically exercise is to say I will have to watch my weight. I lost a lot of weight the first two years, getting down to about 150. I was so proud of myself because for the first time in my life I felt skinny. I could fit into almost anything now and I could eat three meals a day and stay that way. At the time I had nurses that cared for me everyday when I came home from school. It was all good until I moved to Louisiana. 

Once the move was over I started to do my last two years of high school online through a school called K10 International Academy. I have to say that I liked doing school online because I could study thing more in depth and get finished with my work much sooner than a regular school. Well with being online I no longer had to think about what I looked like and I gained a pretty good bit of weight. I weighted 207 and I truly never noticed there for the longest time. It wasn't until I wanted to get some new clothes that I noticed that the size I was use to getting was not going to fit. 

I was very upset with myself that I let myself get that big. I needed to lose most of that weight plus more. The only way I knew how to do that was to just stop eating. I would only eat my dinner and nothing else. It seemed to work pretty well though I had my family worried because I just stopped eating. I tried to explain to them why I was trying to do it but they still worried. Once I got myself down to a like able size I started to eat more just smaller portions. I started to gain more weight and I couldn't understand why I did. I tried to pick healthy food and even eat smaller portions. 

I was put on bed rest last year for a pressure sore that my chair caused on my butt and on my lower back. Once I was there I did not move around as much as I would in my chair. This caused me not to burn as many calories and I stopped getting hungry. Once that happened I started loosing weight again. After the entire year in bed I was able to get back in my chair because it was finally healed. Well I started to gain weight AGAIN. Now I'm back to only eating once a day. I have to say that it's working slowly. I wish it would hurry up but only time can help. 

I'm not loosing the weight to impress any guy, I'm doing this because the heavier I weigh the harder it is on my mom who is the one having to physically picking my butt up and checking the new pressure sore that is slowly healing. Girls that are in wheelchairs should not try to change their looks because they want to impress anyone. They should feel beautiful just the way they are. I know I'm beautiful no matter what anyone says and if a guy doesn't like it so what. There will come a guy that will like you just the way you are weight and all. 

-A 

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Cannot sleep!

6/23/2015

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I cannot sleep so I guess I'll write a blog.

I have always wanted to have a little girl but I knew I was just to young to have a baby. The accident has made me grow up faster than a normal teenager and if you've been where I'm at you know that for yourself. The was only fourteen when my ATV rollover left me paralyzed from the neck down. I was just a child. I was forced to grow up quickly to deal with everything happening to me. At first I had nurses coming in at all hours of the night, every four hours, messing with me. I hardly ever got any sleep and that kept happening for almost three years after the accident. I feel like I'm twenty four or five but I'm really twenty. I've been feeling really jealous that everyone I know has been having babies and it's making me want one. I have nothing to offer a child but love and I don't want to feel that way when I have a baby so I'm trying to keep that in thought during this difficult time. I've tried to make a checklist of the things I'd like to do before I decide to bring another baby into the world. 

I've been following Rachelle Friedman since her accident happened a year after mine and when she said that the medication she takes would make getting pregnant too dangerous it got me to thinking. I know that the pregnancy is something that a doctor needs to help decide if it's a good idea but if I hear 'no' I just don't know what I'd do. I know that adoption is out of the question because who would let a girl that's dependent on someone else adopt a baby? No one would. The cost of surrogacy is way to high for me unless someone I know steps forward like in Rachelle's case but all I can do is hope. I take a lot of medication that most likely she takes too. I would love to get in touch with Rachelle but no matter how hard I try I just cannot get a reply. If you are reading this please go to her facebook or Twitter and help me get in touch! 

-A 

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Welcome!

6/20/2015

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Hello everyone!

I welcome you to my blog! I will be putting my thoughts here when I feel like I want to share. I will not have a scheduled blog post because I'm not always in the mood to share. Please bare with me to get the layout up and get started with my blog.

-A

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    Author

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    Paralyzed from the neck down after an ATV rollover at 14, April Otwell is beating the odds the doctors gave her. She's a blogger, fantasy writer, college student, sugar glider guardian and spinal cord injury survivor.  She's even writing her first fiction novel!

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