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>> ATP made it possible for me at work to function.
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Well, it started out here at work, I was day shift
and I had -- getting ready for work and I --
up in the office and I had gotten a --
like a burning sensation that went
through my stomach and up my back.
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After going through a series of tests and stuff,
they said I had transverse myelitis and I said what's that?
I said I've never heard of transverse myelitis,
it didn't -- well they said my spinal cord got scarred,
it had an inflammation between the C6 and T4.
I go okay, well let's fix it and let's just move on
but it had scarred it a point
where that it took away my mobility,
it took away my dexterity, my fine motor skills.
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While I was going through rehab,
the life skills department asked me if I was going to go back
to work and of course I said yes, I'm going to go back
to work, I want to do something.
Well, she says well, we're going to connect you
with Voc Rehab in Nebraska.
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>> You know initially as a rehab specialist, we want to get
to know the individual, learn their goals, understand,
you know, what the implications for employment are,
what the issues are in terms of what the injury and how
that impacts their ability to go work or be able to keep work.
So we look at work consideration,
what his preferences were, his interests,
what services were going to need to be put in place
for him to return to work.
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>> I received a referral from Frankie
and actually I think she called me prior to sending the referral
and we had a discussion in regards to his case
and what types of assistive technologies that he might need
and then I went out to quality living, he was still there
when I went to meet with him the first time
and just got a good sense of what it was
that he really wanted to accomplish.
And there were several things, he wanted to live independently
and he had already secured an apartment
and was really interested in having some things done
in that apartment to make it accessible
to him, more accessible.
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>> Educating me and to -- knowing that there was things
that are out there that would help me out as far
as adapting my vehicle and a stander.
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>> We had two options that we had come down to with as far
as the essential functions of the positions,
with the wheelchair accessibility was a big thing
that we had to look at so there were two positions
that we had came -- had come up with,
one was a PBX operator position
and another one was a gaming protection position.
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>> One of the things that we did with Mike was we --
once we figured out a couple of jobs at Harrah's
that might actually fit his abilities,
we found some different equipment
that he could potentially use.
>> I never doubted that I would come back, I really didn't.
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I was grateful that I could go back to work and...
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