Medical Diseases

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.

Life Blood, written by a renowned leukaemia physician, tells unforgettable stories of his leukaemia patients’ battles to be cured but also uniquely describes the stresses that doctors face when looking after extremely ill young people during an extraordinary time in their lives. In reflecting on his long and illustrious career, Professor Marks’ memoir offers frank descriptions of his own medical family, some personal experiences of ill-health and his relationships with colleagues and patients in the NHS. Partly written during the Covid pandemic and as he approached retirement, Life Blood offers highly informed and compassionate views on modern medicine, from a pivotal point in both the author’s own professional life and the history of healthcare.

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.

Mosquito Warrior tells the engrossing story of General William C. Gorgas (1854-1920), the once-renowned pioneer in tropical disease research and public health. His fascinating life illuminates vast transformations in the United States. Carol R. Byerly's balanced and contemporary examination of Gorgas illuminates his complex legacy in medicine and public health, military history, and American ambitions at the dawn of United States global ascendency.

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.

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.

After suddenly being diagnosed with a rare form of aggressive cancer, I immediately started spiraling downward. Denial, loneliness, fear, depression, anger, and self-destructive behaviors. My life was a disaster. I was a mess. I was doing just about everything I was instructed not to. All sense of responsibility flew out the window, right along with my sense of morals. Further and further I slid into the deepest, darkest part of my life. I had come to terms with the fact that my life was over. I was going to die. Until I was rescued from not only cancer - but from myself.

Passados dois anos da publicação de seu primeiro livro, Enquanto eu respirar, a jornalista Ana Michelle Soares segue inteira na vida. Em 2011, aos 28 anos, ela foi diagnosticada com um câncer de mama. Aos 32, a doença voltou e atingiu outros órgãos, sem possibilidade de cura. Agora, entre tratamentos e remissões, ela busca o que realmente importa: o sentido de estar aqui. Nesta obra AnaMi se rende à liberdade de descobrir que um diagnóstico não se resume ao que dita a biologia. Com mais paixão do que nunca, ela fala apenas de vida.

The Smooth River is the remarkable story of how a well-known public relations expert and her husband met her stage 4 pancreatic cancer head-on. With vigor and strength, they deployed all they and medicine had to offer. But in contrast to narrow conventional approaches, the couple developed a far more expansive view of what strength means in response to a crisis for which there are no medical cures. They called this the Smooth River.

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.

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.

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.

Über 13 Millionen Deutsche leiden an Hashimoto Thyreoiditis, einer Autoimmunerkrankung, in deren Verlauf das körpereigene Immunsystem die eigene Schilddrüse angreift und letztlich zerstört. Die Folgen: Schlafstörungen, Depressionen, unkontrollierte Gewichtszunahme, plötzlich auftretende Nahrungsmittelunverträglichkeiten, Haarausfall, Unfruchtbarkeit und vieles mehr.

In this book, Stephen G. Post offers new perspectives on the worth and dignity of people with Alzheimer's and related disorders despite the negative influence of "hypercognitive" values that place an ethically unacceptable emphasis on human dignity as based on linear rationality and strength of memory. With vignettes and narratives, he argues for a deeper dignity grounded in consciousness, emotional presence, creativity, interdependence, music, and a self that is not "gone" but "differently abled."

A story about a doctor helping people suffering from mysterious conditions overcome hopeless situations Dr. Zachary Tannous has a history of working with high-level athletes of all kinds, specializing in enhancing physical performance, treating sports traumas, with a focus in neurology, autoimmune disease, and conditions of severe chronic pain. As an ex-collegiate football and semi-professional rugby player, Dr. Tannous knows about traumatic injury and physical performance from a first-hand perspective.

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.

Bradwel reminds us that the centenary of this apparent "wonder drug" should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions, uneven availability and sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In the face of bootstraps rhetoric and "Pharma Bro" capitalists, patients across the world are left to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin truly fulfills the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.