Next time you even think of an excuse, kill it. Next time you even use the words, “I can’t” in a sentence, you should be ashamed of yourself. Last month, I met an inspiring female athlete who changed my whole mindset of life. Everything that could have gone wrong in her life did. But you will never hear her feeling sorry for herself. Nor will you ever hear her making an excuse.

Angela Madsen is a paraplegic athlete. When she was in the military she suffered a back injury while on duty. The injury was bad, but not bad enough to the point to make her paralyzed from the waist down. Unfortunately, the doctors of a Veteran Affairs hospital made several mistakes during her surgery. She was left with a Spinal Cord Injury L1 incomplete. What’s worse is her injuries were not even repaired. Angela received very little physical therapy or rehab. She had to do everything on her own. She revised her goals because she refused to give up.

Several doctors and physicians told Angela she couldn’t do anything anymore. One physician even said, “You’re injury is a waste of human life.” But, what do they know? Angela turned their insults into motivation and turned back to sports. Sports changed the negative things into a positive. It made her stronger!

Angela’s first attempt back was at the 1996 Veteran games. She then started playing wheelchair basketball and was great at that also. Through wheelchair basketball, Angela was introduced to the sport of rowing. The fixed seats installed in the boat made it easy for Angela to row. Rowing has actually made Angela’s back stronger. In 2002, she made her first trip to the World Championships of Rowing and won a silver medal there. Since then, she has been in five World Championships of rowing and she is a five time gold medalist. Angela even competed in the disabled games in Beijing last year.

One of Angela’s two greatest accomplishments was when she rowed across the Atlantic with an amputee man from France in 2007 and the Indian Ocean with a crew of eight members in June of 2009. After 58 days, 15 hours and eight minutes of rowing across the Indian Ocean, Angela became the first woman, disabled and paraplegic, to row across two oceans.

Since crossing the Indian Ocean, Angela has been recovering from the long trip. She is a rowing coach and also has an adaptive rowing program. in Long Beach, California. Plenty of autistic kids and amputees participate in her class.

Angela wants to contribute so much to the sport of rowing, but she is being held back because of financial issues and discrimination from rowing centers. Not a lot of rowing centers want people with disabilities to “take up space.” Despite all the negatives, she still remains positive. “There’s a big difference between a victim and a survivor. The victim is always someone who’s going to have excuses of why they can’t do things. A survivor is going to be someone who just does it no matter what!,” Angela said.

If you want to learn more about Angela’s story or rowing class go to rowoflife.com.

-Isis Roberts