April Otwell
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Weekday Getaway.

6/21/2017

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Monday morning at about ten thirty Brantyn, Madilyn, Jessica and I headed out to pick up Ms. Kay in Jonesville. I had an doctor appointment Tuesday morning right outside of New Orleans so decided that it would be better to go the day before and stay the night. That way we wouldn't have to get up so early and make the four hour drive there to make it by 7:30 am. We'd make it a mini vacation. We found a Best Western that had a pool with a handicap lift so I could go swimming. It would at least be a good way to get out of the house and our normal routine. The trip down there wasn't so bad because both kids slept at least part of the way down there. We got to Best Western at about 3:30pm. We were all so ready to get out of the van. I was most ready because I was freezing with the air conditioner on and it was 91 degrees outside.
Jessica loaded up the dolly with all of our things and we headed to the fourth floor. We came to our room 427, a handicap room with a handicap shower and there's only one bed! It would be Jessica, Ms. Kay, Madilyn and Brantyn trying to sleep on this queen size bed. Needless to say we called down and got the hotel staff to bring one of those fold up cots for Ms. Kay to sleep on. Jessica, Brantyn and I went to scope out the pool and the lift. Downstairs we go! When we get to the pool it's not very big but sure enough it has a lift. The manager, wearing a suit in the 91 degree heat, is having the maintenance man work on getting the lift ready to go. They have a little trouble at first and say he'd call when the lift was ready to go. (Ended up missing a piece and it was a simple fix). So we headed up to our room to change everybody and get the other two who stayed in the room waiting for the cot to be delivered.
And I thought I was cold outside in the sun! Inside the building was worse!
We headed back down to the pool once everybody got changed and they were almost done with the lift. The guys even helped Jessica get me on the lift! The manager held my hand so I didn't fall over while the lift was moving and away I went into the water. It was cold at first but with the warm air and the sun in the sky above us it wasn't too bad. I brought a big noodle thinking I would be able to just hold the noodle and float like a normal person. No! My butt and my legs want to float! So I had to have someone push my legs down in the water so I could sit up. We ended up strapping me to the chair because I got uncomfortable after a while. The sun started to fade behind the wall around the pool and the wind picked up. Guess who got cold! Me! So out the pool I get and sit in the sun drying off and trying to get warm again. After about an hour we went inside, I of course am still cold, and let me tell you the air conditioner so didn't help being cold.
We went up to the fourth floor patio to sit down for a while before getting a shower and ordering pizza. It was nice, a little windy but much better than inside! Madi played on the ground for a bit as we looked up pizza places that delivered and discussed what everybody wanted on the pizza. After ordering from Dominos we went back to our room and everyone got out of their wet clothes and got a shower. I was to cold to get in the nice warm water only to get out in the cold again so I skipped out on my shower. Just about the time Jessica gets me laid out to change my clothes and put another catheter in the pizza deliveryman shows up and knocks on the door. So I have to sit all the way back up just so they can open the door and get pizza. After getting me back dressed and halfway warm again we go back out to the patio to eat our pizza and pasta. I swear to you guys that was the best pizza I have ever had! Now with our bellys all full of pizza we go back to our room to start settling down for the night and eat our lava cakes.
I ended up passing out by like 9:30pm or so. Guess what! I woke up at 1:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I played games on my phone, surfed the internet and done anything I could think of to keep me entertained. I woke everyone up about 5:30 AM so we could start getting dressed and go eat breakfast before I had to be at the doctor at 7:30. We got everybody dressed and running by 6:30. We would have to kind of hurry up and get breakfast down so that we wouldn't be late. They had a very good breakfast buffet however it was not complementary so we had to pay for it. By this time is already like 7:18 and we still have to go back to the room and load up the dolly and load the van back up. Needless to say we were going to be late but thank God my appointment wasn't until 8 o'clock we just had to be there early to fill out paperwork. We got the van loaded up and put in the GPS address to the LSU network that we were going to and thank God it was only like 2 miles down the road. We got there a little late. The receptionist was very rude and was talking to us like we wasn't even there so I will be reporting her. We got back into the back very quickly and saw the doctor. Unfortunately we did not have the hardcopies of my CAT scan and urodynamic study so he could only go on the results but decided he wanted me to come back and get a whole other mess of test done to find out exactly what is wrong with my bladder and urethra before deciding exactly how to proceed. The procedure that I am wanting is an all day procedure. He was a lot nicer than the last guy we went to in Tulane University and hopefully we can figure out exactly what needs to be done in order to fix my bladder and get rid of this awful catheter bag.
So we got back on the road and headed home. This time the trip was horrible! Brantyn was wining about everything. We stopped and had Chinese food for lunch in Natches before coming on home and dropping Ms. Kay off in the Jonesville nursing home parking lot where she had left her car. We didn't get home until 3 pm. After we got home the doctors called and put me down for the tests on June 29, 2017. It's all getting done pretty fast which is something that I really like. I'm hoping I can have this procedure done or whatever procedure that's going to be done by the end of this year. I have to go and give a urine sample Wednesday morning at the hospital for the doctor as well.
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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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