Ken worked in sales for most of his career. “I never really liked it, but I was good at it, and I thought I needed gazillions of dollars to be happy, so that’s kind of why I did it. But I always wanted to go into nursing,” he says.

 

About five years ago, Ken took steps toward shifting his career. He got into a nursing program and was working as a CNA. However, when he had a semester of prerequisites left before his next set of studies, Ken had an accident.

 

“I broke my arm mountain biking. I developed blood clots in my arm that caused a rare thing called compartment syndrome. Everything in my arm basically died, like with frostbite or a burn,” Ken says. Over the course of three years and thirteen surgeries, Ken lost his fingers and other parts of his arm and hand.

 

Ken felt lost after the accident. “I’ve never been so aimless in my life,” he says. It was a tough time. He wasn’t sure how his recovery would go or what his future would hold. A friend of Ken’s had worked at DI after losing a job, so Ken decided that maybe DI was the place for him as well.

 

“I just needed to work, so I came here, and it’s been more amazing than I could have imagined,” says Ken. “It’s allowed me to just work and keep my mind and body busy. . . . I see people here with so many more challenges than I have, but they keep going, and so I get that from them—that inspiration.”

 

Ken isn’t sure what job he’d like to have in the future, so his next step is to return to school and explore his options. One career move he’s considering? Getting a degree and returning to DI as a job coach.