Ward 06
Recovery
rebuilt, not replaced.Two injuries, seven years apart, reshaped my life. One put me in a wheelchair for months. The other ended my career in the trades and pointed me toward design.
The crash
In August 2018, a car accident shattered my left femur and broke my left wrist. I spent 11 nights in hospital, six months in a wheelchair, and another six on crutches.
The crash had forced a chunk of bone out of my leg, and it had to be removed. A year later the gap still hadn’t grown back, so my surgeons tried an experimental procedure. It worked, but it meant starting physio over and rebuilding all my flexibility a second time. Between three surgeries and two rounds of rehab, it took two years before I could go back to work. My recovery blog follows that rebuild.
The full story, post by post, on Facebook.
The fall
In August 2025, I fell off a roof. The fall broke my right heel away from the rest of my foot, crushed it, and shattered my ankle. With hardware already in my left leg, there was no good side left to lean on. After a year of physio, it was clear I would live with arthritis and limits for good, and that my years in the trades were over.
WorkSafeBC wanted to retrain me for another trade-related job. I wanted something completely different, so I advocated for myself until they agreed to take the risk and fund training in a new field. That is how I ended up studying UX/UI design and product management, and why designing for people with mobility limits is personal to me.