Disability Memoir

If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too? Bryan chose to dive. Moments later, as he lay on the beach, unable to move his arms or legs, two questions ran through his mind: Would he walk again? And would he ever have kids? Based on the incredible true story of life, love, and never giving up.

Darkness—that’s what Bozena Gasior remembers feeling when she first heard her two-year-old son’s autism diagnosis. What followed was a cacophony of despair and cries, not knowing what to do, say, or feel. It was the day she thought that part of her son’s life had died. But one eventful day some four years later, his fingers touched the piano keys for the first time, and she felt something—a glimmer of light shining down, illuminating her home and family.

In this inspiring memoir, Emily Falcon chronicles her lifelong journey with a congenital cardiac condition. In 1982, at seven weeks old, she had a heart attack that destroyed 40 percent of the left side of her heart. This was her entry into a world of multiple cardiac procedures, surgeries, hospitalizations, and a later diagnosis of glaucoma. Balancing these serious conditions defined her life.

Kamata's adventures with her teen—who happens to be deaf, with cerebral palsy, and in a wheelchair—through subterranean Tennessee, to the islands of Japan, and to the top of the Eiffel Tower ultimately lead to a daughter's increasing independence, a mother letting go of expectations, and advocacy for travel which prohibits discrimination.

The Magic Circle tells the story of what happens when Charmaine Chan's sister Elaine is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. As the illness progresses, family members living on different continents gather together during Elaine's last days. Striving to distract Elaine from the worst effects of the cancer, Charmaine takes to the pen: conjuring up the vanished world of their childhood in Singapore, and discovering a way to keep her promise to Elaine's six-year-old daughter.

Ellen Keane spent most of her teens uncomfortable with her limb difference and battling to hide her insecurities. It was only when she embraced her difference that she found her superpower. She started to believe in her unique abilities and gradually find the success that she had never dreamed possible. Perfectly Imperfect is for anyone struggling to accept who they are. With anecdotes from her own life, practical advice and good-natured humour, Keane challenges you to let go of waiting until everything is perfect and instead embrace your imperfections and accept who you are, flaws and all.

In the mid-1970s, brothers Buddy and Jimmy Miley were close, both on the verge of impressive athletic careers. A promising high school quarterback, Buddy's potential was cut short by an injury that left him quadriplegic. Immobile and imprisoned in his body for decades, Buddy would watch life pass by from his wheelchair, living at home under his mother's and brother's care and wondering what his life could have been.

The moving true story of a little girl with Asperger syndrome, controlled and abused by the one person she called her friend. Taylor had always struggled to make friends - she felt 'different'. Taylor never knew her father, and her mother wasn't around much. She just didn't understand people and was alone and scared most of the time. That was until, aged just 11, an older married man called Tom befriended her. She loved having someone who would talk to her, listen to her - a protector. But when he moved away a few months later, she was easy prey.

Autism is the fastest growing and most common developmental disorder. Imagine the frustration and anxiety over taking your child to a team of medical specialists to be told that they have a lifelong and often debilitating developmental disorder with no cure and limited treatment options? Lauren's parents knew something was different about her from the time she was an infant but as she entered Kindergarten in the fall of 1986 her differences were very obvious to everyone around her as compared to other children her age.

In 1992, when Henry Grunwald missed a glass into which he was pouring water, he assumed that he needed new eyeglasses, not that the incident was a harbinger of darker times. But, in fact, Grunwald was entering the early stages of macular degeneration - a gradual loss of sight that affects almost 15 million Americans yet remains poorly understood and is, so far, incurable. Now, in Twilight, Grunwald chronicles his experience of disability. This is a story not merely about seeing but about living; not merely about losing sight but about gaining insight. It is a remarkable meditation.

Sarah’s story is one for any parent; it is not just about the highs and lows of having a child with additional needs, but also simply as a mum of three. She talks candidly about coming to terms with the decision to move Oscar to a SEN (Special Educational Needs) school, another big milestone in Oscar’s young life. Whilst Sarah may have found herself on a different path to the one she’d imagined for herself, it has not been a bad one. There is sadness, certainly; and there have been struggles along the way; but there has been so much laughter and happiness, too.

Half a world away from home in 1976, 18-year old Anne B. Thomas awakens on the side of a two-lane road paralyzed from the chest down. Fast forward through a rigorous year of physical therapy to when her doctor gives her an ominous warning: “You will live a long time and be a burden on your family for the rest of your life unless you check yourself into a nursing home”.

What do you do when you wake up in your mid-40s and realize you've been living a lie your whole life? Do you tell? Or do you keep it to yourself? Laura James found out that she was autistic as an adult, after she had forged a career for herself, married twice and raised four children. Odd Girl Out tracks the year of Laura's life after she receives a definitive diagnosis from her doctor, as she learns that 'different' doesn't need to mean 'less' and how there is a place for all of us, and it's never too late to find it.

In this unique and exhilarating autobiography, Allan Jones - Canada’s first blind diplomat - vividly describes how an untreatable eye disease slowly decimated his visual world, most challengingly during his postings in Tokyo and New Delhi, and how he discovered and took to heart the revelatory Indian philosophy that changed his life.

Take hold of your own personal journey. Make peace with it. Peace is truth. If you suffer from bipolar disorder (also called manic-depression), or if you love someone who does, then you already know how frustrating and baffling this mental illness can be. This book assures you that there is great hope—through all of life's circumstances. Even though bipolar disorder may put us through extreme challenges each and every day, if we are rigorous about taking the right medications and keeping an appropriate lifestyle, we can effectively stabilize the disease and choose a good life.

How do you build a life when all that you know is changing? How do you conceive of love when you can no longer recognise those who mean the most to you? A phenomenal memoir, Somebody I Used to Know is both a heart-rending tribute to the woman Wendy Mitchell once was, and a brave affirmation of the woman dementia has seen her become.

Als Matt Haig mit 24 Jahren urplötzlich krank wird, begreift er nicht, welch dunkle Macht da von ihm Besitz ergreift. Die Krankheit überfällt ihn auf so dramatische Art und Weise, dass sie ihn buchstäblich an den Abgrund bringt. Doch Haig entscheidet sich für das Leben - und für seine große Liebe Andrea. Er findet heraus, dass er nicht allein ist mit der Diagnose Depression, sondern dass Millionen Menschen auf der Welt sein Schicksal teilen.

See how, throughout her life, she became a believer, and even with Kerry and Kaylynn's love and support, she had to find the strength elsewhere to get up each and every day to be the best mom she could be for Austin. Listen to how still, to this day, she struggles with negative emotions and guilt and needs to be reminded often that God is in control, and he will never forsake her, even when she feels she is alone.

In 2004, Mindy begins hearing a voice in her head, someone she calls "Joe," and sees signs everywhere that hold mysterious clues only for her. What she doesn't know at the time is that she is experiencing her first schizophrenic episode. For the next decade, she oscillates between two worlds -- a normal life and a secret voice-filled one -- until she begins the journey of merging her two worlds back into one. Becoming Whole documents her onset of schizophrenia and the subsequent years spent learning about it and how to live with it. It is her journey to find solace.

The yard was a huge piece of property with a forest out back (or at least a few dozen trees). We had a barn and a horse (really a very small pony, but I didn’t know that then) named Romeo, because he liked to roam—often ending up out of the fenced pasture and out on the street. We had chickens, as well, in a coop by the barn up at the edge of the forest.