While at The Center for Blindness and Low Vision in Kansas City, Missouri, I was fortunate enough to meet April Woods. April would soon become one of my dearest and most treasured friends even though I am old enough to be her mother. April inspires me and she will do it for you too. Her Story is told below, with her very kind permission.
Cathy Pyper
April was 23 years old in 1997. A beautiful young woman full of life and her career as a registered nurse at a hospital in Oklahoma. She graduated from college with her degree in nursing and was fulfilling her dream of caring for people.
She was also a country music fan. She had been having severe headaches for a few days and had been to the clinic at her hospital. Just stress, nothing to worry about she was told.
She attended a Garth Brooks concert in July of that year in Oklahoma. It would be the last thing she would experience for nearly two months.
April became so ill with her headache the next day that she had to be admitted to the hospital and went into a coma. Her parents and sisters were summoned from Dixon, Missouri to be with her. "Your daughter is brain dead, I am sorry to say" or words to that effect. Devastated, her family stayed by her side. Surprise!! April wasn't brain dead after all. Still she was in a state of consciousness that she doesn't remember for about two months.
April had to endure weeks of physical therapy, not to mention that she had to do this therapy blind. She is a spunky girl and by December 1997 she was enrolled in The Center for Blindness and Low Vision. She took that place by storm. Soaking up all the knowledge and training they had to offer. She excelled at everything; she even learned how to use Braille effectively. She was Mobil with a white cane but in a few months she would go to Guide Dogs for the Blind and get Thomas her yellow lab dog guide. I would follow her a few months later to the same guide dog school.
April "graduated from CBLV and got at job working for the Easter Seals Society. Being a nurse was what she had trained to do. It was what she wanted to do would society ever be able to accept a visually impaired nurse? That question has remained unanswered.
Spunky April had no luck here in Kansas City with continuing her nursing career. So she picked herself up from the disappointment and moved across the state to "St. Louis. She eventually found work in the Neurology Department as a Staff Nurse at Barnes Hospital. She doesn't work directly with patient care but does follow up with patients following their surgeries. Is she fulfilled by this, no not really. April wants to be a nurse.
With that avenue closed to her she started taking graduate courses at college in St. Louis. If she can't work as a nurse working with patients then she would just get a masters degree in Social Work and then she would look for a job in the hospital setting working directly with patients. In a different way than she had dreamed of all her life but still making a difference in the world.
April works and takes graduate classes full time. She runs all over St. Louis on the bus and the Metro Link. She is totally independent and successful. I know she will find that job doing what she wants to do because she is so determined. April will graduate in about a year and a half and in her quest for that Masters degree; it has become necessary for her to become an advocate for people with disabilities in St. Louis and the school she attends. She will graduate, I have no doubt and my husband and I will be there and be so proud to know her and have her friendship. I haven't put all of the things in here that April has overcome, some are too private but I haven't met anyone who I admire more for her determination and inspiration to others. By the way, she got the nickname Spunky from me. She was living in Kansas City then and wasn't all that good at her mobility skills yet. She wanted something from the store and she wanted it now. She worried me half to death, but she made it across one of the busiest uncontrolled intersections this city has to offer. The name Spunky fit her that night and it still fits her today, along with kind, generous, loving, and beautiful and the best kind of friend to have.
With gratitude to April from Cathy and Peter Pyper