Disability Biography

Operated on as an infant, without anesthesia, Wendy P. Williams began life at war with her body. There were tubes everywhere, in and out of every opening, her mother reminded her on every anniversary of her surgery. Autobiography of a Sea Creature takes listeners on Williams’ difficult sensory journey toward healing, as she communes along the way with horseshoe crabs, dolphins, and other marine life that taught her the restorative power of beauty, resilience, and interdependence.

Darryl Jefferson was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at the age of eight and encountered many hurdles in life due to the condition. Despite this, he persevered through many challenges in school, work, relationships, and the military. In this story, he takes us on a journey through one man's experience of living with autism and its effects on school, work, relationships, friendships, and many other life challenges.

Desde muito cedo, Louis aprendeu a lutar. Lutou pela vida desde o nascimento. Com determinação e persistência, enfrentou e venceu, um a um, os obstáculos que o destino lhe impôs. Contra a previsão de vários especialistas, andou, falou, leu, escreveu, chegou à universidade. Aos 20 anos, nos presenteia com este audiolivro em que narra com otimismo, apesar de tudo, sua entrega ao jogo da vida, no qual cada minuto é importante para a vitória.

I matti ci incuriosiscono, ci costringono a riflettere, ci cambiano lo sguardo, ci mettono davanti ai nostri fantasmi, non ci lasciano mai indifferenti. La storia dell’uomo è costellata di individui eccentrici, bizzarri, anticonformisti, visionari, in molti casi con disturbi psichici gravi, ma altamente creativi in campo letterario, artistico, scientifico. Partendo da queste considerazioni, è nata l’idea di una sorta di calendario che racconti, al posto del santo del giorno, il matto del giorno.

Most would not expect a book about a stroke to be entertaining, but this memoir will force you to laugh through a tragedy, then cry, then laugh again. Avrel Seale was fifty, did not smoke or drink, had low blood pressure, and had hiked more than two hundred miles the year a stroke nearly ended his life. In an instant, he was teleported into the body of an old man—unbalanced, shaky, spastic, and half-paralyzed. Overnight, he was plunged into a world of brain surgeons, nurses, insurance case managers, and an abundance of therapists.

Musical director and arranger David Loud, a legendary Broadway talent, recounts his wildly entertaining and deeply poignant trek through the wilderness of his childhood and the edge-of-your-seat drama of a career on, in, under, and around Broadway for decades. He reveals his struggle against the ravages of Parkinson's and triumphs repeatedly. This memoir is also a remarkable love letter to music. Loud is the Ted Lasso of the theater business, ever the optimist!

Darlene was a small-town single mother from Arkansas. Bert was a small-town preacher’s son from Oklahoma. Polio crippled both of them as teenagers. When their paths crossed at a rehab center in 1952, these young adults questioned how anything good could come from this crippling virus. Bert’s faith in the Biblical passage of Romans 8:28 gave him hope that “Polio was not good, but God would bring good out of it.” Darlene’s journey to the rehab center was “the one way for God to get me in the right place at the right time.”

Meet Priscilla and Dave — two headstrong people with very different but complementary disabilities. When they met, fireworks flashed, but they soon became inseparable and each other’s "other half". Together, they attacked and overcame every obstacle in their way — and had one hell of a time doing it. Follow the story of their fiery love affair among moments of raucous laughter, fear, joy, sadness, and incredulity at people's behavior.

After a diagnosis of a degenerative eye disease, John Samuel’s life—and his chance at success—started to vanish. In a world systemically unequipped for accessibility, disability inclusion is often left out of conversations about diversity. For people with disabilities, it can feel impossible to adapt and thrive when you’re already set up for failure.

February 29th is a date that comes into existence just once every four years. It is also the birthday of Thais - author Anne-Dauphine Julliand's darling daughter - who died of a genetic disease. Thais lived just shy of her fourth birthday. She had a short life but good one. As this special day is about to reappear on her calendar for the first time since her daughter passed away, Anne-Dauphine struggles with how to mark this momentous occasion. She wants to live fully on this special day: Thais would have been eight years old.

A raccoon bite on the arm doesn’t seem that serious, but it soon becomes a life-or-death medical crisis for Melissa Loomis. After days of treatment for recurring infection, it becomes obvious her arm must be amputated. Rewired is the inspirational, miraculous story of Dr. Ajay Seth’s revolutionary surgery that allows Melissa to not just move a prosthetic arm simply by thinking, but to actually feel with the prosthetic hand, just as she would with her natural arm. This resulted in what others have recognized as the world’s most advanced amputee.

From a very young age, Judy Heumann heard the word NO. When she wanted to attend public school, the principal said NO. When she wanted her teaching license, the New York Board of Education said NO. Judy and people with disabilities everywhere were tired of hearing “NO.”

Being blind, Debby has had many of those experiences, as a parent, counselor, grandparent and someone who simply loves life. Her faith in a God who loves us shifts that frightening scenario into one of confidence and peace. In this book, through stories and poetry, she describes some of those moments where she has walked by faith, not by sight, both spiritually and literally.

No one would ever guess that simply hanging curtains could be life-changing! In the blink of an eye, Paula's world turned upside down as a broken leg morphed into life threatening events that pushed her reality into a darkness we only see in movies. Legless tells the story of Paula's fight to triumph over heartbreaking trauma while depression and suffering snapped at her desire to live. Unwilling to surrender for the sake of her family, she dug deep into the meaning of life at every setback and found herself changed, transformed and seeing herself through the eyes of a new normal.

Autism and BPD are two conditions that affect every aspect of my life. I wouldn't be who I am if I were not autistic and did not have BPD. Within this book, you will listen to the struggles I've had to go through, from growing up, to confusing teenage years, to challenges in adulthood. You will also listen about the good times I've had in my life, and my reasons for carrying on when I was at my lowest. Some of the content within this book may be triggering, but if it helps just one person, it would have been worth it. I hope you enjoy listening to my story.

With aspirations of being a successful lawyer, Jonathan embarks on a path to make his dreams come true, but is ultimately, unable to do so due to his schizoaffective disorder. In this candid and unflinching memoir, Jonathan reveals his story in all its rawness: the ups, the downs, the wins, the losses, the highs and the darkest of lows.

At the age of four, Joshua Miele was blinded and badly burned when a delusional neighbor poured sulfuric acid over his head in a crime that shocked New York. It could have ended his life, but instead, Miele—naturally curious, and a born problem solver—not only recovered, but thrived. Throughout his life, Miele has found increasingly inventive ways to succeed in a world built for the sighted, and to help others to do the same. At first reluctant to even think of himself as blind, he eventually embraced his blindness and became a committed advocate for disability and accessibility

See how, throughout her life, she became a believer, and even with Kerry and Kaylynn's love and support, she had to find the strength elsewhere to get up each and every day to be the best mom she could be for Austin. Listen to how still, to this day, she struggles with negative emotions and guilt and needs to be reminded often that God is in control, and he will never forsake her, even when she feels she is alone.

This is a guide for anyone going into a mental asylum or institution for the first time, or if you have a delusional loved one, with a mental illness, this will help you relate to them better in understanding insanity. Now, join me, in the asylum, as together we go on a very odd journey of discovery in my first mental institution experience. Enter a strange world, before I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, as I compete against other game show contestants in a battle to win genetic traits for my family tree.

In Morant's "Letters to My Son, Rōman," an authentic real-time journal, the author of the #1 release, "The Happy Has Been," shares his personal love letters to his son, Rōman, begun while still occupying Mom's belly. It was later, before Rōman's second year, that he was diagnosed with "severe autism," non-verbal in nature.