Disability Memoir

Lauren Windas is one of the estimated 250,000 people suffering with CFS in the UK. Whilst at university in 2012, she fell ill with a viral infection and was later diagnosed with CFS. Since then she has devoted herself to reclaiming her health and being able to live a full life, drawing on the knowledge of experts to help manage her often mysterious and hard-to-manage condition. In Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lauren recounts the highs and lows of her own health journey and experiences,.

Condamné par la maladie, Olivier Goy partage avec la journaliste Anne Fulda son inlassable combat pour mieux faire accepter le handicap et lever des fonds pour la recherche, et, surtout, appelle à regarder et aimer la vie pleinement?! Olivier a 46 ans quand on lui diagnostique la maladie de Charcot en 2020. Une maladie neurodégénérative qui se traduit par une paralysie progressive des muscles, mais laisse au malade ses pleines capacités intellectuelles. Espérance de vie?: 3 à 5 ans.

At once heartbreakingly honest and strikingly witty, Holding On by Letting Go is the unforgettable true story of one woman's journey through despair to acceptance and hope. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of the light that can be found in the darkest of times.

In the fall of 1988, Sue Miller found herself caring for her father as he slipped into the grasp of Alzheimer's disease. She was, she claims, perhaps the least constitutionally suited of all her siblings to be in the role in which she suddenly found herself, and in The Story of My Father she grapples with the haunting memories of those final months and the larger narrative of her father's life.

Katherine and Jay Wolf were a young couple living the dream in Southern California, but all was nearly lost when Katherine suffered a shocking near-fatal brainstem stroke and struggled to find hope in a life that looked nothing like the one they had before.

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.

Jon Attenborough, a visually impaired football fan, embarked on an extraordinary journey across Scotland with his guide dog, Sam, visiting every single one of the 42 Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) grounds. Jon and Sam made each journey by public transport – legends! This memoir chronicles their shared experiences, blending Jon's love for football with the profound bond he shares with Sam. As they travel the length and breadth of Scotland, Jon navigates the challenges of accessibility, the unpredictability of live sports, and the warmth of Scotland's football community.

Abigail Heringer made her television debut as an instant fan-favorite on season 25 of The Bachelor. Stepping out of the limousine, she approached her bachelor with a playful declaration: she would be staring at his lips all night for two compelling reasons—her profound deafness since birth, and because he had some nice lips! But Abigail’s journey wasn’t always marked by such confidence. Growing up deaf and introverted, she dreaded being the center of attention, fearing her disability would burden those around her.

Lucy Edwards is a UK-based blind broadcaster, content creator, Pantene Ambassador and disability activist. At only 17 her world went to black. In an instant Lucy lost her eyesight due to a rare condition called Incontinentia Pigmenti. She had to learn how to navigate her life all over again, the beginning of an extraordinary journey to find self-acceptance and happiness. Lucy took to the internet and started to upload her experiences. Through sharing her day-to-day routine in her viral 'How does a blind girl?' video series, Lucy's story gripped the nation.

For years, Emma Carey was a regular young adult who would wake up and go about their day on autopilot, someone who would look at a sunset and feel unaffected, someone who was living, but not really alive. That is, until something happened that enabled her to really see life for the gift it is. Emma was in a skydiving accident that made her a paraplegic. This book is not just about Emma's fall from the sky and how she learned to walk without ever regaining feeling in her legs but also about the beliefs and ideas that helped her survive.

In 1958, Riva is one of the first children born with spina bifida to survive. Her parents and doctors are determined to "fix" her, sending the message over and over again that she is broken. That she will never have a job, a romantic relationship, or an independent life. Enduring countless medical interventions, Riva tries her best to be a good girl and a good patient in the quest to be cured. Everything changes when, as an adult, Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture.

Christopher Reeve has mastered the art of turning the impossible into the inevitable. In Nothing Is Impossible, Reeve shows that we are all capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable hardships. Published on the eve of both his fiftieth birthday and the seventh anniversary of his spinal cord injury, Nothing Is Impossible reminds us that life is not to be taken for granted but to be lived fully with zeal, curiosity, and gratitude.

Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference.

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

Devenir aveugle : pour Marie-Christine comme pour quiconque, cette idée est inconcevable et terrifiante. C’est pourtant la sentence que la jeune femme de 30 ans reçoit au printemps 2018 : elle ne verra plus. Jamais. Les couchers de soleil, son visage dans le miroir ou la frimousse de son fils : désormais, tout n’existera que dans sa mémoire, jusqu’au jour où ces images disparaîtront comme peau de chagrin.

When Schuyler Rummel-Hudson was 18 months old, a question about her lack of speech by her pediatrician set in motion a journey that continues today. When she was diagnosed with bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria (an extremely rare neurological disorder), her parents were given a name for the monster that had been stalking them from doctor to doctor, and from despair to hope, and back again.

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.

Jeff Bauman woke up on Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, and he had no legs. Just 30 hours prior, Jeff was surrounded by revelry at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. The first bomb went off at his feet as he awaited his girlfriend's finish. When Jeff awoke days later from hours of surgery, rather than take stock of his now completely altered life, Jeff ripped out his breathing tube and tried to speak. He couldn't. Jeff asked for a pad and paper and he wrote down seven words, "Saw the guy. Looked right at me," setting off one of the biggest manhunts in the country's history....

As a deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her. And she knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

Sara invites us to join her on a far more personal journey, this time, as she tests her own beliefs in the alternative health-care practices she’s learnt of over recent years.