Second Sunday Series — Editor’s Note: That is the tenth of 12 columns on work and disability appearing over 12 months — one on each second Sunday of the month, from September through August. Previous columns discussed whether to work with a disability, the subminimum wage, promotions for employees with disabilities, higher education decisions, self-advocating, profession suggestions for family caretakers, testing limits as a employee with disabilities, the dilemma of showing disabilities during job search, and overall concepts of disability within the workplace.

Will you develop into disabled during your working years? In that case, will you give you the option to work?

Statistics are tricky but one commonly-used data point indicates 25% of today’s 20 year-olds will experience a disability during their working years. Some disabilities are short-term, with little impact on a employee’s profession. Others are everlasting but manageable when it comes to work, while still others create a drastic change and even loss of labor.

The disabilities themselves could involve any situation that changes one’s ability to operate, including physical injuries, acquired chronic conditions equivalent to Lyme’s disease, or events equivalent to strokes.

That’s what happened to Dean Reinke, my friend who suffered an ischemic stroke 17 years ago. A competitive whitewater canoeist, Dean was in excellent physical shape, with the cardio-vascular fitness of an athlete — making him look like an unlikely candidate for stroke on the relatively young age of fifty. In actual fact, the night his carotid artery sent a blood clot caroming to his brain, he was lower than 24 hours off the water from a six-day Canadian wilderness trip. It’s a matter of relief that he was home when it happened.

Strokes are extremely individual, making it difficult to predict recovery patterns. In Dean’s case, reasoning and speech were unaffected however the stroke permanently disabled his left arm and hand and altered his gait. He returned to his job as a pc programmer after six months on short-term disability. Although his therapist told him stroke patients typically take more break day work, Dean felt he could make higher progress by returning to his life more fully.

This was the pre remote-work era, so Dean continued to commute, using a rather customized vehicle. At work, he used off-the-shelf and improvised technology modifications and relied on his right hand for typing.

Six years later, Dean found himself unwillingly early-retired at age 56 with a call to make: Compete with latest graduates for computer programming jobs, or switch to something else? He made the switch, but backwards in time: By highlighting his expertise in “ancient” programming languages he was capable of work as a salaried consultant on COBOL and Assembler until he retired in 2018, at 62.

Nowadays Dean travels extensively, enjoys his off-the-grid cabin near the Boundary Waters, and frequents as many live music events as he can slot in. He also devotes several hours a day to churning out entries for the blog he began in 2010.

Now topping 25,000 entries and 5.3 million views, the blog has gained a repute for presenting Dean’s somewhat salty commentary on what he sees as medical complacency in resolving the stroke puzzle. It’s a broadly-researched compendium on treatments and experimental alternatives, peppered along with his own experiences within the recovery process.

What if you happen to also needed to address a life-changing disability? Dean didn’t apply for Social Security Disability (SSDI), but that’s a path many take, particularly when working seems unlikely. If that were to occur, having a pre-purchased, long-term disability policy could provide a welcome financial bridge.

Although insurance will be arranged prematurely, more specific strategies can’t be engineered unless a disability happens. In that case, Dean has advice: First, regardless of the disability, talk with individuals who have passed through it, while also pressing your medical team for customized recovery protocols as an alternative of generalized treatment guidelines.

And second, some tough love: “ ‘Don’t quit’ is simply too cliché,” he says, “but you’ve got to buckle down. It’s not the tip of the world. People have been living with disability for generations and you may also.”

Assuming your condition isn’t totally disabling, Dean’s approach could assist you tackle the mandatory profession questions: Are you able to proceed your current work — or is it time for a profession change, retraining and even self-employment? What accommodations will assist you stay in the sport?

Dean notes that this isn’t the worst time to be a disabled employee: “As a culture,” he says, “we’re moving into the best direction. We’re moving from pity to enablement in the case of having a disability.”

Amy Lindgren owns a profession consulting firm in St. Paul. She will be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.