Medical Diseases

From a darkened world, bound by four walls, a young woman called Jessica tells the tale of her battle against the M. E. Monster. The severest form of a neuroimmune disease called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis went to war with her at just 15 years old. From beneath her dark glasses, Jessica glimpses a world far different from the one she remembers as a teenage schoolgirl. This true story follows her path as she ends up living in a hospital for years with tubes keeping her alive.

Fourteenth-century physician Alejandro Guzman, caught performing an autopsy in Spain, flees across Europe at the time of the Black Death to escape execution for his heretical deed. When he arrives in the Papal city of Avignon, he is conscripted against his will to serve as a Plague Doctor in the court of England's Edward III. Unfolding in a dramatic counterpoint is the story of American medical archaeologist Janie Crowe, in England at the turn of the 21st century to recover from the tragic loss of her family.

This book covers the history of 12 important diseases and addresses public health responses and societal upheavals.

Lopsided is not your ordinary cancer memoir. Meredith Norton displays the razor-sharp wit of a master humorist as she chronicles her experience, from the first appearance of her bizarre symptoms to moving in with her compulsive parents and their five television sets.

The Long Tale of Tears and Smiles explores an immigrant oncologist’s journey of triumphs and struggles, from growing up in Syria, to the tragic death of her brother, to her experiences as a young immigrant medical student and trainee in the USA. Walk through her anguish witnessing the civil war in Syria and its devastation; see her become a practitioner, watching the field of oncology evolves throughout the years.

When you or someone you love is diagnosed with cancer it feels like your whole world is falling apart. Not knowing what will happen next is terrifying, and that is the main reason I wrote this book, hoping that my experience could help others. The first title of this book was, “My body is weak but my mind is strong”, starting out as a story about my personal battle with cancer, and that was the mantra I used to hype myself up before my final chemotherapy session.

A coming-of-age memoir for modern times, Bleeder is the incredibly compelling tale of author Shelby Smoak. A hemophiliac, Smoak discovered he had been infected with HIV during a blood transfusion at the start of his college career. This devastating and destabilizing news led Smoak to see his world from an entirely new perspective, one in which life-threatening illness was perpetually just around the corner. Set in the 1990s along the North Carolina coast, Bleeder traces Smoak’s quest for love in a world that feels increasingly dangerous.

Forfatter og antropolog Ina Kjøgx Pedersen har været på feltarbejde i sin egen familie. Hendes idé var på nærmeste hold at følge sin mors demenssygdom; den sygdom, som er udråbt til at være en af vor tids største personlige og verdensøkonomiske katastrofer, som i ringe omfang lader sig behandle, og som i sundhedsvæsnet kun kan måles negativt: I form af rask tilbagegang. Men ville det også opleves sådan for hende i virkeligheden?

If you’ve ever been ugly dumped, knocked off your feet, financially devastated, stunned by a potentially fatal diagnosis, or paralyzed by fear, you’ll find comfort and strategies for surviving and eventually thriving in this book. Her surprising journey through the maze of illness, treatment, surgery, and recovery, along with her stubborn daily practice of gratitude, even when she wanted to throw her gratitude journal off a cliff, will leave you laughing, crying, and hopefully feeling grateful, even when it seems impossible.

When Henry Scowcroft's partner, Zarah, was diagnosed with stage-four bladder cancer in 2016, their world fell apart. An award-winning science writer for Cancer Research UK, Henry had spent 14 years at the coal-face of cancer research, but now the disease had infiltrated his personal life too. Henry uses this unique perspective to tell the story of Zarah's illness, how he tried in vain to use everything he'd learnt in his professional career to try to save her and in doing so, how he realised that even a career writing about cancer daily isn't enough preparation for what comes next.

Finding a cancerous lump in her breast seven weeks after a clean mammogram was terrifying. But fitness expert and race announcer Fitz Koehler refused to play the victim or allow cancer to steal her extraordinary career or time with family. In My Noisy Cancer Comeback, Fitz reveals the juicy and gory details of her 16-month battle, all while zigzagging across the United States.

Off Our Chests recounts the story of Liza and John’s experience with her diagnosis and treatment. Written in alternating voices, Liza details her treatment and the complex decisions she had to make throughout her course of chemotherapy and radiation, including clinical trial participation and an elective double mastectomy, with the added complexity of being treated at the cancer center of which John was the chief of hematology and oncology and dealing with the emotional impact of knowing she may die as a young woman with young children.

What is it like to encounter cancer? How does it feel to face the unknown, to enter a world of hope, loss, and dread? From the diagnosis of his childhood friend’s mother to his poignant memories in the lab, David Scadden’s seen the unknown world of cancer from the lens of a young boy, a classmate, a researcher, a friend, a doctor, and a neighbor. Scadden chronicles his personal memories of cancer - his visits to his sick neighbor and his classmate who left school and never came back.

These heartwarming and inspiring stories by brave women and men who have survived breast cancer are a must-listen for anyone personally or indirectly afflicted by the disease. How We Beat Breast Cancer brings together the experiences, thoughts, struggles, and victories of unique women and men from all walks of life, who tell the stories of their battles with breast cancer. Their narratives portray both the good and the bad in a real, candid language, sharing everything from diagnosis, through treatment, to life with and after cancer.

One in eight UK males will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, more than 130 new cases are discovered each day and, on average, one man dies from the disease every 45 minutes. Despite these statistics, and the fact that there are getting on for half a million men living with, or in remission from, prostate cancer in the UK, the condition is rarely discussed publicly and most men ignore the warning signs. Graham Sharpe wants to help change that.

Leaving London to return home to rural South Wales, Robyn finds that it's her old life - same teddy bears resting on her pillow, their bodies tucked under the duvet; same view of the garages behind which she'd had her first cigarette and first kiss - but so much has changed. Her dad, the proud, charmingly intelligent self-made man who made people laugh, was in the grip of early onset Alzheimer's. His brilliant mind, which saw him building power stations and literally bringing light into the lives of others, had succumbed to darkness.

If you have Lyme disease, you know firsthand the desperation that comes from being misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and misdirected. You need straight answers and real solutions, but all you get is the runaround. Riding high as a hard-driving entrepreneur in the solar industry, Taylor Nelson contracted Lyme disease in his mid-twenties. Spiraling down swiftly, he tried everything to feel like himself again, turning himself into a human guinea pig. Taylor shares his deeply personal story, what he tried, how it worked, and how to live a full life in the face of a devastating disease.

Bettina Greschner hat sich lange Zeit ihres Leben nicht erwünscht und nie gut genug gefühlt. Das Leben ging nicht gerade zimperlich mit ihr um. Aufgewachsen mit einem alkoholabhängigen Elternteil, der tödliche Verlust des Lebenspartners kurz vor der geplanten Hochzeit, 2011 die Diagnose "Brustkrebs" und zeitgleich die Selbständigkeit mit einem Möbelgeschäft, welche damals unter keinem guten Stern stand. Was nun? Warten bis es noch schlimmer wird und noch weiter bergab geht? Nein! Das war keine Option.

In January of 2021, I was given an “all clear” on my cancer. Nine months later my “all clear” turned into “two to four months to live”. To say that was a shock to me would be a gross understatement. The only way I could handle it mentally was to compartmentalize it in my mind and write about it.

"Du har cancer Charlotta" sa läkaren. 35 år gammal fick jag aggressiv trippelnegativ bröstcancer. Mina barn var då ett, två och fyra år. Jag stekte pannkakor och planerade inför min begravning. När Charlotta får reda på att hon är gravid med sitt fjärde barn är hon redan i artonde veckan. Det är bara sju månader efter hennes senaste cellgiftsbehandling och läkarna hade sagt att hon inte skulle kunna få fler barn. Hon överväldigas av känslor. Lycka. Rädsla. Hon börjar skriva ner sina tankar, för att komma underfund med tankarna om allt det ljusa och allt det mörka.