Disability Biography

Are You Two Sisters? is Susan Krieger's candid, revealing, and engrossing memoir about the intimacies of a lesbian couple. Krieger explores how she and her partner confront both the inner challenges of their relationship and the invisibility of lesbian identity in the larger world. Using a lively novelistic and autoethnographic approach that toggles back and forth in time, Krieger reflects on the evolution of her 40-year relationship. She describes building a life together, from sharing pets and travels to getting married.

When a 200-pound glass partition fell on Donna Fado Ivery's head resulting in brain injury, disability, and chronic pain, she could no longer count on walking, speaking, or thinking. How would she care for her infant, her preschooler, her husband, and herself? How would she continue to serve as pastor? With humor and humility, this inspirational memoir speaks to Donna’s struggle through medical, social, and church prejudice with the abiding support of family and the Holy Spirit.

Le 8 décembre 1995, à la suite d’un accident vasculaire cérébral, Jean-Dominique Bauby est plongé dans un coma profond. Quand il en sort, toutes ses fonctions motrices sont détériorées. Atteint de ce qu'on appelle le " locked-in syndrome ", il est littéralement enfermé à l'intérieur de lui-même ; il ne peut plus bouger, manger, parler ou même simplement respirer sans assistance. Dans ce corps inerte, seul un œil bouge.

Told with shocking honesty and in unbelievable detail, Bipolar: A Gift of Thorns is a profoundly insightful memoir that shines a light on one woman’s courageous journey and the stigma of bipolar disorder.

In this unique and exhilarating autobiography, Allan Jones - Canada’s first blind diplomat - vividly describes how an untreatable eye disease slowly decimated his visual world, most challengingly during his postings in Tokyo and New Delhi, and how he discovered and took to heart the revelatory Indian philosophy that changed his life.

Amit Patel is working as a trauma doctor when a rare condition causes him to lose his sight within 36 hours. Totally dependent on others and terrified of stepping outside with a white cane after he's assaulted, he hits rock bottom. He refuses to leave home on his own for three months. With the support of his wife, Seema, he slowly adapts to his new situation, but how could life ever be the way it was? Then his guide dog, Kika, comes along....

My life has been nothing short of a miracle. A true triumph, even in the midst of adversity. In Deaf Blind Champion, I give you a front-row seat into how my life changed when I heard my diagnosis, and what I did to get through the depression that engulfed me to become an accomplished sportsman, a dad, life partner, son, brother, teammate, and activist.

Sabrina Greenlee was born to teenage parents in the shadow of South Carolina’s Clemson University, and her story unfolds against the backdrop of her challenging upbringing in a family that lacked the means—financial and emotional—to offer her and her two brothers the safety, comfort, and love every child deserves. When she was a teenager, her beloved younger brother, Dilly, died in a drunk driving accident. In her early twenties, Sabrina faced the tragic loss of her fiancé and one true love. A decade later, she was brutally and publicly assaulted, resulting in the loss of her vision.

In this heartwarming and candid memoir, Tim Howard does something he would never do on a soccer field: he drops his guard. As fiercely protective about his privacy as he is guarding the goal for the US national team and for Everton in the English Premier League, Howard opens up for the first time about how a hyperactive kid from New Jersey with Tourette's syndrome defied the odds to become one of the world’s premier goalkeepers.

Find Another Dream, written and performed by Maysoon Zayid, is the true story of how a Muslim Jersey girl with cerebral palsy creates her own path to stardom. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, as a child she dreamed of one day dancing on Broadway. As a teen, a bubble-bursting choreographer told her to “find another dream”, so she set her sights on becoming a soap star, undeterred by the fact that the odds were against her.

On June 10, 2008, Carol Decker walked through the hospital doors a healthy woman with flu-like symptoms and early labor contractions. Three months later, she returned home a blind triple-amputee struggling to bond with a daughter she would never see. Unshattered recounts Carol's fight for survival against sepsis and its life-shattering complications. From excruciating skin grafts to learning how to function in daily life without lower legs, a left hand, and her sight, Carol takes us on a personal and raw, yet inspiring journey.

Shortly after his daughter, Leontine, was born, Christian Donlan's world shifted an inch to the left. He started to miss light switches and door handles when reaching for them. He would injure himself in a hundred stupid ways every day. First playful and then maddening, these strange experiences were the early symptoms of multiple sclerosis, an incurable and degenerative neurological disease.

From being a little girl in a village in China with polio to a tech executive at Apple, Libo Cao Meyers has had quite a journey in life—a journey steeped in rich family legacy and powered by determination, growth, and love. Over the years and the miles, she’s embraced her differences and has allowed no one—including herself—to set limitations on what she’s able to accomplish. But just because she’s been successful doesn’t mean it’s been easy. Not by a long shot.

Quadriplegics simply do not walk again - yet millions watched as Chris Norton defied incredible odds and took step by impossible step across his graduation stage. With his fiancée, Emily, by his side, those unbelievable steps became the start of an extraordinary journey for them both. Told from both of their unique perspectives, this moving story invites you to find, as Chris and Emily have, that God can transform our lowest points into life's greatest gifts.

People around the world have fallen in love with Penguin the Magpie, a global social media sensation, and her adventures with her human family. But there is far more to Penguin's story than meets the eye. It all begins when Sam, Cameron Bloom's wife, suffers a near fatal fall that leaves her paralyzed and deeply depressed. One of their three sons, reeling from the tragic accident, discovers an injured magpie chick abandoned after she had fallen from her nest. The boys name the bird Penguin, for her black-and-white plumage.

Fred Rutman was certainly up against it. It being the Grim Reaper. The Reaper unleashed its full arsenal, pitting Fred against much of the medical system he trusted with his life. Even if Fred won the initial battles, could he win the war? The Summer I Died Twenty Times is a medical trauma memoir unlike any other. In one package, Fred Rutman provides all the overcoming adversity, resilience and beating the odds a listener expects. With a side of sarcasm and humor. He may not be the hero you expected. He just might be the hero you need.

David Paterson overcame severe disability and racial prejudice to become a state senator, lieutenant governor, and - unexpectedly - governor of New York. Paterson was the first and only blind governor - other than a man who held the title for 11 days in 1975 - and the fourth person of African descent to hold the office of governor in American history. Paterson may also be the only governor in history to have been arrested outside the governor's office prior to his service.

A short, inspirational audiobook from Henry Fraser, a young quadriplegic motivational speaker and artist. Henry Fraser was a 17-year-old sports enthusiast and senior prefect when he broke his spinal cord and was left paralysed from the shoulders down. Life as he knew it was over, and yet, through extraordinary determination and a positive attitude, he has forged a successful career as an inspirational speaker and an artist.

At the age of sixty, and having lived with Parkinson’s disease for over ten years, Guy Deacon CBE set out on one last adventure: to drive solo from his home in the UK 18,000 miles and through twenty-five countries to Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa. This incredible journey, across Europe and down the full length of Africa, took the former British Army officer over twelve months. Along the way, he broke down five times, underwent one emergency evacuation, and took 3,650 prescription pills.

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.