Disability Memoir

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.

Je m'appelle Mason Cyrille Elong Ewing. J'avais à peine 4 ans lorsque ma mère Marie est décédée, laissant derrière elle un petit bout d'homme. Au Cameroun, on m'appelait Toro, j'étais l'enfant au destin fragile. Puis je suis arrivé en France chez mon oncle et ma tante, pour une meilleure vie. On m'avait promis un fabuleux voyage, mais personne ne m'avait précisé que c'était pour l'enfer. J'étais devenu, Lucien, l'esclave.

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.

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.

As a 14-year-old psych ward patient, Harry realized he had a choice: let anorexia keep ruining his life or fight back against everything his mind told him was true. Now 22 years old, Harry delicately pieces together how his mind derailed to that point, what’s happened since he made his choice, and most importantly, what it’s taught him about life and how best to live it.

Why the Cane? is a personal memoir which recounts the true story of a man’s regaining a level of activity he thought would not be possible after a devastating injury. It chronicles his medical journey, the upheaval suffered by his family, and the counsel and support which shifted his focus and provided a framework to make thoughtful decisions for the long term.

Life is difficult for many people who face great dilemmas. For them, life can be a blur. However, this statement will be quite literal when you only put yourself in my shoes. For years now, I have suffered. During my teenage years, I was diagnosed with an untreatable nerve condition that tragically made me lose my sight within a speck of time. Since then, I had to learn and adapt to my new way of living—as a young blind adult.

In Turning Tragedy Into Triumph, Michael Bush fearlessly opens up about his extraordinary battle with both mental health challenges and the harrowing ordeal of fighting and surviving stage 4 cancer. Through gripping honesty and unwavering vulnerability, Bush takes listeners on an emotional rollercoaster, from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of triumph, demonstrating the indomitable human spirit's capacity for resilience and transformation.

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.

My journey with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, has woven itself throughout my life for 40 years. Whether it was active, or dormant, it has always lurked in the shadows. But, this illness, like any illness, can be managed and maintained.This story is particularly relevant for today's society. It is our charge to know a segment of our society who, for the most part, is misunderstood. When the Brakes Fail provides a forum for understanding the myths, the injustices, and the stigma of mental illness.

Andrea struggles to mourn a man who is still alive as she witnesses her father decline into the depths of Alzheimer's. Denial and devastation color her life when she learns her father, Richard, a recently retired surgeon, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the age of 67. Her dream to grow closer to him is crushed as the reality of his disease is fully realized. Andrea, a mother of three young children, learns to balance motherhood with daughterhood as she grapples to accept her father's fate.

When Markisha was pregnant, the doctors found out her baby has anencephaly and told her the best option she has was to get an abortion. She refused and kept going with the pregnancy. The doctors gave the baby a short time after birth to live, but she lived up to two and a half years old. Her name was Miracle.

Born four weeks premature and weighing little more than five pounds, Scott A. McCreight had a rough start and uncertain future. He was placed for adoption, but the good news didn’t last long: shortly after, Scott was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Developmental delays permeated his childhood, the odds for a “normal” life seemingly stacked against him.

Arriving in the UK from Jamaica at the tender age of 14, Keisha shares her empowering lived experiences growing up with undiagnosed Dyslexia and Dyspraxia, while facing several intersectional challenges that include culture, race, and the UK education system.

“Canal dói?” “O que é que eles fazem no Japão?” “Os Menudos são legais?” Stella Estrela não se dedica a responder nenhum desses questionamentos, mas a apresentar a autora dessa lista tão peculiar de perguntas. Stella nasceu com a síndrome de Williams-Beuren, uma desordem genética rara que impôs, de saída, enormes desafios a ela e a seus pais.

Escrito quando Naoki Higashida tinha apenas 13 anos, o conjunto de ensaios reunidos neste audiolivro conta, do ponto de vista do próprio Higashida, a experiência de ser autista. Preso em seu mundo individual, muitas vezes ele exibe comportamentos vistos como estranhos, peculiares, “inadequados”. Seja repetindo palavras e frases aparentemente sem sentido ou evitando contato visual com outras pessoas, Naoki tem uma enorme dificuldade de se comunicar e de socializar.

Adversity Builds Character is the story of a young man's life struggles to find his way through the trials and tribulations of family turmoil, self-determination, and personal judgment. This transformational life experience, like so many, demonstrates the triumph of the human spirit over the pitfalls in our modern world. From a divorce wrecked family life through the upheavals of a shattered home brought on by a disease-ridden single mom, Thomas Ufert is blessed with the first of many second chances granted to him by his Godmother and her family.

Sam always knew he was starting life on the back foot. When his parents split, Sam, his mother and his brother had to learn to survive in a world not built for single-parent families. Add to that Sam's diagnosis with a form of dwarfism and the odds seemed stacked against them. As surgeons kept breaking and resetting Sam's legs in attempts to keep him walking, disability and poverty collided, and it took all the family's strength not to crumple in the impact. In Broke, lawyer and disability advocate Sam Drummond weaves a poignant, stirring and deeply compassionate tale of life on the fringes.

I have always had difficulty seeing. It started as a child with difficulty seeing at night. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would one day be diagnosed with a rare condition that could eventually take my vision completely. This book touches on some of the struggles I, and others suffering with visual difficulties, go through. It is my hope this will give an understanding to others and help those dealing with their own issues to find peace knowing they are not suffering alone.

Imagine waking up and everything you knew was suddenly unrecognizable. No memory of your friends, family, or even your children remains. This is the story of one brave woman beginning her new life after a traumatic brain injury. Join her on this journey of discovering faith, love, adversity, and victory through the unforeseen events of life.