My personal experience

I feel the best place to start is with my personal experience.
My mother and I were involved in a car accident. A northbound drunk driver, who was on the wrong side of the road, being pursued by the police crashed into our southbound vehicle. It was the beginning of my summer holidays between my university years.

My mother and I were treated very well by Wellington Hospital for a month.
My mother had an Occupational therapist who assisted with a Return to Driving training course, ran a gradual Return to Work program, conducted ergonomics work station assessments, memory strategies and brain exercises and issued equipment.
I had an Occupational therapist who issued me with equipment.

At this stage my amazing step sister had just completed her first year of Occupational therapy. She stayed home for the summer to be my own personal Occupational therapist. She taught me how to get around in my electric wheelchair, gradually introduced me back into the community and helped me find a wheelchair accessible flat in Wellington (what a mission)!

The ultimate goal was to enable me to return to university.

Three months out of hospital, still in an electric wheelchair, on regular morphine, tramadol and other pain medication with two hours a day of physiotherapy and I wanted to go back to university! I have been told I was warned off by family and friends but I don't remember these conversations. I had all the support in the world; I was 19 and was fiercely independent, had a 30hr a week job and was enrolled in full-time study. I "only" had injured limbs - why couldn't I go back to university?

Where was the professional helping me through this process?
I hugely valued and listened to evertything my physiotherapist told me to do. Was there a professional that could have helped me gradually get back into my daily occupations, such as university?
Was it someone in the same profession that helped my mother gradually get back into her daily occupations, such as work?