Disability Biography

In this inspiring memoir, Emily Falcon chronicles her lifelong journey with a congenital cardiac condition. In 1982, at seven weeks old, she had a heart attack that destroyed 40 percent of the left side of her heart. This was her entry into a world of multiple cardiac procedures, surgeries, hospitalizations, and a later diagnosis of glaucoma. Balancing these serious conditions defined her life.

Robert was a young man struggling to make it on his own when in 1990, he suffered a violent and traumatic experience when someone put a bullet through his brain. Robert tells the amazing story of survival during a time when life shriveled to dark emptiness and his future seemed hopeless.

An inspiring story of hope, strength and courage. After doctors said there was no hope for her newborn daughter, this mother refused to give up. Despite her daughter’s severe disabilities, Lucy went on to touch many lives with her presence and became her mother’s greatest teacher.

See? is an inspirational autobiography that describes how God's grace and the firm, loving support from family, friends, neighbors, an exceptional teacher, and caring supervisors guided the author through life's challenges. It also debunks common myths of blindness and discusses adaptive equipment used by the author on her journey.

This book is based on real-life events and is a raw and authentic account of a true fight for life and justice—a memoir of a mother’s love for her daughter, Rachel, who is diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy, a condition which makes her incapable of voluntary movement or speech. It tells of hopes and fears, and the true meaning of what it’s like to be the mother of a daughter with severe cerebral palsy. It portrays Rachel’s passion for life and her mischievous sense of fun.

Do you like sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll? Do you know what jails, institutions, and death are all about? I don't want to be controlled, but can I control myself? Who says I have to live by society's rules?

At age 54, Chris Monnette is diagnosed with neovascular macular degeneration, an incurable retinal disease that slowly robs him of his eyesight. As each cell in his macula dies and his vision diminishes, he is forced, literally and figuratively, to see the world through different eyes. Raised in the shadow of an emotionally stifled father, Chris learns early on to mirror the belief that vulnerability equals weakness. A piercingly honest meditation on the emotional legacy of stoicism, Seeing Clearly is much-needed proof that being a man and being vulnerable are one and the same.

You'll relate, you'll cry, and you'll want to learn more. A story of triumph over tragedy, again. In this moving tale, you'll follow Cristi Bundukamara's life as a blissful newlywed who hopes to give back to the world. Her family grows quickly in the form of both biological and adopted children. Cristi has all that she hoped for and more when a senseless drowning rocks her family. While struggling to pick up the pieces, more tragedy ensues and Cristi has to dig deep to keep moving forward.

Negli ultimi decenni si è verificata una profonda rivoluzione nella cura della sclerosi multipla, una disfunzione del sistema immunitario che colpisce 122.000 italiani e 2,5 milioni di persone nel mondo. Grazie allo sviluppo di nuovi farmaci sempre più efficaci e a fondamentali scoperte, dai fattori di rischio genetici e ambientali al ruolo rigenerativo delle cellule staminali nel cervello, ora, finalmente, la vita delle persone che soffrono di questa malattia è sempre più vicina alla normalità.

Stoney McGurrin, in his debut book, brings us on the adventure of his lifetime. Having spent months in the hospital as a four-year-old, where he almost lost his arm, only to have it saved by a famous French surgeon Dr. Chance, he left Leitrim as a teenager on ship across the Atlantic to New York City. The stories are exciting, sad, happy, and true; from 1941 to the present, from pencil to paper.

Bill Rush lived with a significant disability of quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He did not have use of his arms, hands, or voice. Society’s prejudices proved to be a greater obstacle than his disability in attaining his first life goal of completing college. Rush chronicled his extraordinary life from childhood until graduation from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in Journey Out of Silence, first published in 1986. This second edition brings back into print Bill's original chronicle. It also contains an introduction to Our Life Our Way, the sequel.

From childhood stutterer to inspirational speaker! The Courage to Shine is a powerful and inspirational memoir by Eileen Forrestal, a former anesthesiologist who transformed her life. After a lifetime of "putting people to sleep", Eileen is now in the business of "waking people up" as a writer, speaker, and coach. In The Courage to Shine, Eileen retraces her journey. She shares her childhood trauma of an accidental overdose of junior aspirin that led to her subsequent speech impediment, the embarrassment of which caused her to hide her voice in silent shame.

A sudden rise in opioid addicts coinciding with a sudden drop in legally available opioids, created a desperation for prescription drugs never seen before in this country. Physicians shut down their previous practice of repeated refills, once the death toll was too high to ignore. As hospitals and rehab facilities instituted drug testing and CORI checks to ensure employees were clean, one health-care option stood alone as a place to easily obtain painkillers. That place was home health care.

Annie and Rolf Lulloff were entering an exciting stage of life in 1976 when the first signs of health issues that lie ahead for Annie began to emerge. A sudden loss of sense of smell, severe anxiety attacks, vision issues, and other neurological challenges piled up, eventually culminating in a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease on New Year’s Eve, 1989. But the Lulloffs were not about to let Parkinson’s get the best of them.

They say if you want to make God smile, tell him you have a plan. Dwight’s plan was to live his dream, teach math, coach football, and build a comfortable life for himself. Fate had other things in store for him. The story of Dwight’s physical and emotional journey from life as an able-bodied young man chasing his dreams only to have his world turned upside down by the thoughtless act of a 71-year-old drunk driver.

In No Bad Days, JT details the incredible story of how he overcame what seemed like insurmountable odds and shares the many invaluable lessons he has learned throughout his life in the hope that others might reach their full potential. These lessons include how to: find your tribe, pull off the label, stretch yourself, listen to others, and learn to fall. JT’s improbable life story is evidence that regardless of the mental and physical challenges you might face, you can defy the odds to create the life you want and accomplish the things you’ve only dreamed about.

A profoundly beautiful memoir about disability, difference, and living as a vulnerable body. Jan Grue had just become a father when he inherited a stack of his childhood medical records. Following a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three, the raft of doctors' notes, clinical descriptions and case histories defined his body as defective and his future as bleak and limited. They conjured a childhood nothing like the one he remembered, that failed to anticipate the life he lived now. "I Live a Life Like Yours" is Grue's beautiful, groundbreaking search for a literary language that could better tell his story.

In 2004, Mindy begins hearing a voice in her head, someone she calls "Joe," and sees signs everywhere that hold mysterious clues only for her. What she doesn't know at the time is that she is experiencing her first schizophrenic episode. For the next decade, she oscillates between two worlds -- a normal life and a secret voice-filled one -- until she begins the journey of merging her two worlds back into one. Becoming Whole documents her onset of schizophrenia and the subsequent years spent learning about it and how to live with it. It is her journey to find solace.

Alle hören auf "Daffy", nur Daffy nicht: Abenteuer Blindenführhündin - von Jennifer Mai, gesprochen von der Autorin. Alle hören auf "Daffy", nur Daffy nicht. Vor allem wenn die ansonsten so zuverlässige Blindenführhündin gerade etwas Schmackhaftes im Freilauf entdeckt hat, kostet dies Jenny, ihrer Arbeitgeberin, viel Geduld. Die hohen Erwartungen der Passanten sind bald noch schlimmer als Daffys Dickkopf. Denn die Leute vergessen eines nur allzu gern: Ein Blindenführhund macht einen verantwortungsvollen Job, allerdings ist und bleibt er immer noch ein Tier.

Sumérgete en la extraordinaria vida de Gerardo Schmedling, un hombre cuyo poder espiritual inquebrantable desafió las adversidades de la parálisis de Guillain-Barré en su juventud y las secuelas que afectaron su movilidad de por vida. Este relato, narrado por su prima María Mercedes Olivares Schmedling, conocida como Mechas, quien compartió con él desde su infancia, revela cómo Gerardo se convirtió en el arquitecto de un movimiento global de transformación personal y social.