Medical Diseases

Transformative, enlightening and inspiring - a compelling and candid story of life with constant pain. Irish broadcaster and producer Andrea Hayes is well known to the Irish public for her positive, friendly and down-to-earth persona on television and radio. Hidden behind her smile, though, is Andrea's battle with constant chronic pain. After over 20 years of unanswered questions, misdiagnosis, failed procedures and despair, she was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, Chiari Malformation 1.

On the surface, Victoria Jackson is the American Dream personified: from a troubled childhood and unfinished high school education, she overcame immeasurable odds to create a cosmetics empire valued at more than half a billion dollars. Married to Bill Guthy - self-made principal of infomercial marketing giant Guthy-Renker - Victoria’s most treasured role is mother to three beautiful, beloved children, Evan, Ali, and Jackson. Suddenly, Victoria’s dream life is broken....

How far would you go for someone you love...on a unicycle? Brothers and sisters often dare each other to do things – it's what siblings do. However, when Connie Johnson dared her brother, Samuel, to embark on a one-wheeled odyssey around Australia, she knew it was a big ask. But Connie knew exactly what she was doing and was sure he wouldn't say no. Not this time. Born a year apart, Connie and Samuel Johnson have always been close.

This audiobook is not about cancer. It is about how David Lankes, professor and father, responded to being diagnosed, living with, and being treated for cancer. That is an important distinction because cancer is not funny. Cancer sucks. Cancer does not teach, cancer does not preach, cancer does not comfort, or inspire, or inform. Cancer kills. How one responds to cancer? That is a completely different matter.

Ronald Reagan’s daughter writes with a moving openness about losing her father to Alzheimer’s disease. The simplicity with which she reveals the intensity, the rush, the flow of her feelings encompasses all the surprises and complexities that ambush us when death gradually, unstoppably invades life.

Doctors on the Edge is the true account of doctors who are faced with wrenching moral dilemmas, thrust upon them uninvited and unexpected. Sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting, law, medicine, and morality intrude on the daily practice of medicine. In gripping stories that often include life-and-death decisions, doctors maneuver through ambiguities, subjectivity, and the essential principles of medical ethics.

James Capuano's BEAST delivers the author's highly idiosyncratic, inspiring and informative take on his diagnosis of Stage IV colon cancer, and his long journey to remission. The book is sure to provide entertaining reassurance to others diagnosed with cancer in its various forms, as well as those who care about and for them. In the end, his message is this: No matter how hopeless or dire a situation may seem, nothing is inevitable, and the will - no, the conviction - to fight counts for a hell of a lot.

Carrie Host has given us a book on how to believe in the future---a future Host visualizes as a painting made up of a multitude of tiny dots called "right now." An intensely intimate journey into the unseen and unspoken aspects of catastrophic illness, told from the determined viewpoint of a 40-year-old stay-at-home mother of three

It's Saturday, and everything is different. No, I didn't go to the market this morning, and I didn't have my usual coffee on Westerstraat. And no, I wasn't getting ready for a new semester at college. Next Monday, January 31, I have to admit myself at the hospital for my first chemotherapy session. For the next two months, I'm expected each week for a fresh shot of vincristine, etoposide, ifosfamide, and loads more exciting abracadabra.

Diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkins lymphoma, wife and mom of four littles Lisa Engelman experienced normal feelings of shock, fear, grief, and uncertainty. But she didn’t follow normal protocols when it came to seeking treatment.

From the discovery of the Polio vaccine to the breakthrough in mRNA vaccines for COVID-19, this exploration of scientific inquiry celebrates the greatest developments to date in vaccine science. Get to know the physicians, scientists, and other researchers responsible for these breakthroughs in medicine, and explore the ups, the downs, and the eureka moments that are science in action.

James Abram Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, was assassinated when he was shot by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, less than four months after he was elected president. But Garfield didn't actually die until 80 days later. In this thriller, award-winning author Gail Jarrow delves into the fascinating story of the relationship between Garfield and Guiteau, and relates the gruesome details of Garfield's slow and agonizing death.

I have had Parkinson’s disease (PD) for 22 years. I am told I have a mild case, but it is still my PD, and I live with it 24/7. It would be a gross understatement to say my life was changed forever. Interestingly, many of these changes have made me a more compassionate, empathetic, and caring person. In part, this book was motivated by the following premise: Many of us will experience a life-changing event that will cause us to pause and reassess where we are, what we do, and why we do it. For some, it might be the death of a loved one or a personal tragedy.

Anticipating a career in medicine, Dr. William A. Haseltine was in his first weeks of graduate studies at Harvard when a legendary physician-scientist offered this advice: “You can do more for human health through science than you ever could as a doctor.” That advice hit him “like a thunderbolt” - and he took it. Since then, Dr. Haseltine has helped combat cancers, worked to contain the HIV/AIDS pandemic and unlocked the power of the human genome to develop dozens of new pharmaceutical cures.

At the relatively young age of 49, I was told I had a rather dangerous situation with my heart that needed fixing sooner than later. I had both an aortic aneurysm and a damaged aortic valve. It was a ticking time bomb in my chest and only a matter of time. My only viable option was to undergo the most invasive and riskiest of procedures – open-heart surgery.

When I graduated from medical school, a third of heart attack victims died at home or in the hospital. Heart rhythm disorders were killing or crippling hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Severe heart failure was a death sentence. Preventive cardiology was practically unknown: the significance of high cholesterol was being debated, 50 percent of adults were smoking cigarettes, and high blood pressure was usually undetected and often poorly controlled. All of this changed for the better - much better - during the 47 years I practiced medicine and cardiology.

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.

In June of 2014, Terry Thornhill was stricken with one of the most deadly forms of cancer — metastatic breast cancer. She was instantly told there were no viable treatments and the disease is fast-moving. She was warned to prepare her family as she would not last through the coming holiday season. With the valor of the most brave warriors, Terry began an all-out war with this evil killer. She did not give up, never surrendered.

Mysterious and misunderstood, distorted by biblical imagery of disfigurement and uncleanness, Hansen's disease or leprosy has all but disappeared from America's consciousness. In Carville, Louisiana, the closed doors of the nation's last center for the treatment of leprosy open to reveal stories of sadness, separation, and even strength in the face of what was once a life-wrenching diagnosis. Drawn from interviews with living patients and extensive research in the leprosarium's archives, Carville: Remembering Leprosy in America tells the stories of former patients.

For the first time, journalist and historian David Talbot turns inward in this intimate journey through the life-changing year following his stroke, a year that turned his life upside down, and ultimately, saved him. In his signature voice and with powerful storytelling, Talbot examines the physical, emotional, and psychological impact his stroke has had on his identity. Along the way Talbot offers listeners insider stories on the wild early days of internet journalism, insights into the new tech culture, the down and dirty of Hollywood, and much more.