Disability Memoir

After starting a family and flourishing in his career, Tim Hague was struck by misfortune. The irritating tremor in his foot turned out to be early onset Parkinson's disease. He was only 46 years old. But what seemed to be an end became a new beginning. Just three years later, Hague won the inaugural The Amazing Race Canada (with his son, Tim Jr., as his teammate). His remarkable life story shows that perseverance is not just a matter of willpower: it is a skill that can be learned and honed.

Erik Weihenmayer is the first and only blind person to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge.

When John Tovey lost his sight at the age of 42, he thought his life was over. He was wrong, it was just beginning. John had followed a bad path drifting in and out of trouble. He was sent to improvement schools, a young offenders institute and eventually a prison. John was on self-destruct and thought nothing or no one could help him. Then he became the victim of a vicious attack by a notorious train ‘steaming’ gang. John knew he had to take the witness stand.

Mothering under normal circumstances takes all you have to give. But what happens when your child is disabled, and sacrificing all you've got and more is the only hope for a decent future? Full of rage and resilience, duty and love, Ashley Bristowe delivers a mother's voice like no other we've heard.

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.

In Voice, Adam Pottle explores the crucial role deafness has played in the growth of his imagination and in doing so presents a unique perspective on a writer's development. Born deaf in both ears, Pottle recounts what it was like growing up in a world of muted sound, and how his deafness has influenced virtually everything about his writing, from his use of language to character and plot choices.

Dive headfirst into the urban symphony of "Smelling the Taste of Sound", a riveting memoir of a newly diagnosed, neurodivergent trainee lawyer. Her sensory issues are compounded by the sirens that punctuate the daily grind of a tough, inner-city law firm. Amidst encounters with eccentric characters and surreal personalities, our protagonist navigates the chaos and unorthodox office dynamics with comical observations and resilience.

Perhaps, you are one of three girls, or one of five boys that was sexually abused by the time you were 18 years old. Unfortunately, I fell into that nasty category. In preparing to write my first memoir, Identifying and Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse, I came upon a list of approximately 99 different after-effects that come as a result of sexual abuse. Finally, I held in my hands, a list of words that totally and completely described myself! I pray that this audiobook will give you the information that you need for a total and complete healing in your life!

In Take Me Home from the Oscars, Schwab tells for the first time her story of living an amazing life in television while suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Schwab recounts with incredible honesty how on the same day she produced and appeared in a major makeover segment for Live with Regis & Kelly in New York and then raced to Chicago to appear on Oprah!, all while balancing medications to ward off the relentless pain that plagued her on-camera and off.

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.

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.

Kevin’s life was forever changed on a random Wednesday when he was just 20 years old. An aspiring musician at the time, he was planning to attend music school and pursue his dream of becoming a composer. A stroke dismantled every plan and everything in his life. In Taken By Surprise, Kevin chronicles his battles with the stroke. After a risky brain surgery, he was in a coma for nearly a month and spent six weeks in an acute rehab facility to learn how to walk and talk all over again.

A revelatory collection of essays on the DeafBlind experience, and a manifesto on the power and untapped potential of touch. Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world. He is on the frontlines of the Protactile movement, which gave birth to an unprecedented tactile language and a way of life based on physical connection.

From the time she was a toddler, Lou Ann Walker acted as the ears and voice for her parents, who had lost their hearing at a young age. As soon as she was old enough to speak, her childhood ended, and she immediately assumed the responsibility of interpreter - translating doctors’ appointments and managing her parents’ business transactions. Their family life was warm and loving, but outside the home, they faced a world that misunderstood and often rejected them.

In 1895, a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine Hathaway, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her from becoming a “hunchback” like the “little locksmith” who does odd jobs at her family’s home. Forced to endure her confinement for ten years, Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that none of it has prevented her from developing a deformity of her own.

As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound—because of the workarounds he did to fit in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But by the time he was a prospective college student and couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast. A personal soundtrack was Hay’s determined compensation for his condition.

By combing through the journals that Hannah has kept for much of her life, this collection of narrative essays delivers a fuller picture of her life, her experiences, and the things she's figured out about family, faith, love, sexuality, self-worth, friendship, and fame. Revealing what makes Hannah tick, this sometimes cringeworthy, poignant collection of stories is sure to deliver plenty of Hannah's wit and wisdom - and hopefully encourage you to try your hand at her patented brand of reckless optimism.

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.

On Halloween day 1990, Sterling Krysler—husband, father, pilot, newly arrived in Hawai'i—suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury while body surfing at a local beach. Ever the optimist, Sterling accepted the life-changing injury becoming advocate and inspiration to many in the "disability community." This is a family-centered story brimming with love, joy, and humor. This is his story—before and after.

Imagine if you were to lose your sight? Would it feel like the end of everything worthwhile? There is a way forward. Once you realise that blindness is a word and not a sentence, life takes on a new perspective. There are ways to thrive with vision loss. This book reveals how to turn such a life-challenge into a lifestyle you can fully manage and enjoy.