Disability Memoir

"La situazione di Cesare è molto grave. È giusto che te lo dica. Fate tutto quello che potete con lui, non rimandate." La storia di Valentina, Federico, Ale, Terry e Cece si è interrotta qui, tra le mura di un ospedale e la paura di non avere più tempo. Loro, però, si erano Fatti una promessa: anche nei momenti più bui, tra le ombre, avrebbero cercato la felicità. Così, tra feste di compleanno e gite in canoa, la loro storia continua, e con l’estate ormai alle porte il loro viaggio diventa molto di più.

Ellen Keane spent most of her teens uncomfortable with her limb difference and battling to hide her insecurities. It was only when she embraced her difference that she found her superpower. She started to believe in her unique abilities and gradually find the success that she had never dreamed possible. Perfectly Imperfect is for anyone struggling to accept who they are. With anecdotes from her own life, practical advice and good-natured humour, Keane challenges you to let go of waiting until everything is perfect and instead embrace your imperfections and accept who you are, flaws and all.

Si no es cada cuatro años que se celebran los paralímpicos, si no se acerca el Día Internacional de las pcd, cuando las marcas realizan acciones; si no es que el gobierno da beneficios fiscales para impulsar la inserción laboral de este grupo, el resto del tiempo las personas con discapacidad viven entre las sombras.

Frederick Moore spent his 1950s Minneapolis childhood obsessively teaching himself guitar and writing songs. In the 1960s, his bands Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos reached local stardom. After, they put everything they had into their cars and caravanned to Los Angeles. From a garage in suburban Arleta, they evolved Skogie into a new band called The Kats. In the 1980s, The Kats sold out every major club in Los Angeles.

Theirs was an unlikely life together. Sheila gave birth to Josephine on 11th May 1993 and for twenty-three years they co-existed in a loving mother-daughter relationship, but one with a difference. Josephine suffered catastrophic brain injury at birth, never spoke to Sheila, rarely smiled and was barely able to see the faces of the people who loved her.

The Umbrella Picker tells the true story of a woman who was lost for 45 years until she learned that she is Autistic. After a long and relentless journey of searching for answers, the hand of fate finally revealed to her what she had waited a lifetime for. Learning she was Autistic was life changing. She is no longer lost, and having found her own, unique way, Jane has written the (brutally honest!) book she wished was available to her years earlier.

Her Name Was Lola is the story of Trish Ryan’s triumphant recovery from a stroke that should have killed her. She had a successful career in the entertainment industry for over 30 years until May 5th, 2017, when she suffered a severe stroke that changed her life forever. Living a very fast-paced life had not prepared her for when it all came to a grinding halt. Lost and confused with no roadmap to follow, she relied on her faith to show her the way to embrace what happened and move forward.

This book is about one big rollercoaster. It's about a girl who has CP (cerebral palsy) and the challenges she has faced throughout her life. A girl who is lucky to be blessed with people who stood beside her all the way. A girl who tries to do it all and doesn't let her CP get in the way of life. She just goes with it!

Dharana nos cuenta en este alentador relato su inquebrantable fuerza interior frente a la experiencia de la enfermedad y cómo cultivar la energía del amor y la comprensión le han liberado del miedo. Le han hecho seguir siempre adelante siendo este su lema, por más difícil que la vida se lo haya puesto.

Darkness—that’s what Bozena Gasior remembers feeling when she first heard her two-year-old son’s autism diagnosis. What followed was a cacophony of despair and cries, not knowing what to do, say, or feel. It was the day she thought that part of her son’s life had died. But one eventful day some four years later, his fingers touched the piano keys for the first time, and she felt something—a glimmer of light shining down, illuminating her home and family.

The story of Dr Amo Raju OBE DL is truly remarkable. Today, he is a multi-award winning member of society. Yet as a disabled child to present day, many around him have attempted to determine his future according to their own limiting expectations which led him to a thirty-year secret ‘relationship’ with depression. Authors Amo and Mani have ensured the protagonist, AJ Rai, based on Dr Amo Raju OBE DL, takes you on a journey of pain, heartache, laughter and triumph whilst capturing real-life scenarios which will keep you gripped to the next chapter.

Damaged is a story of survivor's guilt coupled with resentment tempered by love. It reveals the changing dynamics of a family faced with an injury no one could heal. Nancy Klein was in the first trimester of her second pregnancy when she made headlines as "Coma Mom." This intimate memoir, written by Klein's sister, reveals all that happened to her and her family after the news cycle moved on. The family: a mother who never gave up hope, even when hope was long gone, and a father who couldn't live without his wife's love.

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.

Hilda’s family didn’t know she had muscular dystrophy. They just knew their preschooler was losing her ability to walk. But they were determined to find a cure. Being disabled in Cameroon meant not only obstacles to transport, but visits to diviners and evangelists, threats of sexual assault, discrimination, and a crisis of faith. Despite the hardship Hilda has faced, her family’s unwavering support and God’s unwavering grace have helped her persevere to become a national broadcaster.

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.

When Emmett de Monterey is eighteen months old, a doctor diagnoses him with cerebral palsy. Words too big for his 25-year-old artist parents and their happy, smiling baby. Growing up in South East London in the 1980s, Emmett is spat at on the street and prayed over at church. At his school for disabled children, he's told he will be expelled if the rumours are true, if he's gay; at his mainstream school, teachers refuse to schedule his classes on the ground floor, and he loses a stone from the effort of getting up the stairs.

«Sono Rachele e ho 29 anni. A un mese dalla nascita, è stato detto ai miei genitori che avevo la fibrosi cistica, una malattia genetica degenerativa da cui non si può guarire. La malattia non si vede perché colpisce principalmente gli organi interni; tutte le secrezioni sono alterate e molto dense, il muco ristagna ed è difficile respirare. Quando sono stata invitata a un evento della Fondazione per la Ricerca sulla Fibrosi Cistica, mi sono chiesta: come faccio a unire la mia passione per i motori con quello che mi sta più a cuore?»

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.

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.

Bonner Paddock grew up just wanting to be ordinary. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age eleven, he guarded the truth about his health, building a normal life and keeping his secret from everyone—most of all himself—for the next eighteen years. But the sudden death of a friend’s young son due to cerebral palsy forced Bonner to reevaluate who he was and spurred him to pursue one breathtaking experience after another.