Living with a disability not only changes one’s life, but it also may change one’s dreams. This often unexpected change may lead one’s life down a path of healing and awareness that can be taught to better help the needs of others.

At age 12, Susan Kocsis realized her life would forever change following a fall during a basket ball game in which both of her knees gave out and were dislocated. The doctors said she had a degenerative disease breaking down bone muscle and the nerves in her body.

She was living in Texas at the time, after traveling overseas growing up in a military family where she says she enjoyed skiing and playing sports.

“It was hard especially being a kid and knowing one day I could do anything and the next what I could do was extremely limited,” said Kocsis.

After her fall she was wheelchair-bound off and on for the next 20 years. From age 12 to 22, she endured one surgery per knee every year.

Over time she got her degree at Texas Woman’s University, the number one school in the nation for occupational therapy. She has a background in nursing and in OT and she says almost everything she has done has to do with helping people learn to live with disabilities just like she had to do. She also worked as a flight attendant until her own disability worsened to the point where she could no longer work.