Showing titles in People with Disabilities

In 2012, combat engineer Curtis McGrath was serving in the Australian army in Afghanistan when, in the line of duty, he stepped on a mine. Seriously injured but still conscious and aware he'd bleed out and die within minutes, McGrath, as the unit's chief first-aid officer, directed his comrades to apply tourniquets and administer an IV and morphine. Then, as he was stretchered to a helicopter, fearing he would never see his family again, he joked that he planned to become a Paralympian.

So, there I was, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mark Wahlberg. Most women would say, "A dream come true", but in my case, it was a prayer answered. He is adorable, but I'm over 70, and I was on a mission. Sure, I've dreamed of being a movie star, but on that day my title was "unpaid extra" in a movie I would never go to the theater to see...R-rated...but I had a reason for being there, and only God could have orchestrated it. It was October 2014. Here's the story of how I appeared in the ComiCon scene with Mark Wahlberg in Ted 2. I'll start from the beginning.

This short biographical work describes the experiences of Chimezie Ihekuna, a Nigerian man born with a facial deformity. From one scenario to the next, Chimezie encounters ostracisation and indifference from peers and elders alike. He reflects candidly here on the impact this has had on his life. His story is an invitation to empathy for all those who listen.

In this moving memoir, Joy Clausen Soto vividly brings us into her world. We see her go from her dream job to fighting for her life, and how she is able to come back from it all. You can't avoid falling in love with her quirks, indomitable spirit, and wry sense of humor. Soto takes listeners on a compelling journey as she faces cancer and the challenges she encounters while re-entering "normal" life.

Randi-Lee’s true story of coming to terms with her depression. Sharing thoughts around suicide and the harsh reality of feeling the need to hide these thoughts, each chapter outlines coping strategies that can help an individual explore their own mental health and lovingly embrace themselves. Worksheets are provided at the end of the book to but the strategies into practice. Stopping the stigma of mental health starts with speaking honestly and openly. Topics discussed include: therapy, medication, coping mechanisms, suicide, negative self-talk, positive self-talk, and self-care.

This book begins with focusing on dealing with the societal ramifications/stigma of mental health disorders, the LGBTQ spectrum, and also looking at the religious stigma of the two. Finally, I will be telling my life story mainly from the years of 2012 to 2018 for the most part. Coming to terms, with my mental health disorder and identifying as a gay male.

A young man with special powers is forced to retire from a life of violent crime and escape from New York City at the age of 18. He gets his life together and becomes a respected physician. Thirty years later, he is afflicted with a mysterious illness silently sweeping across the globe. While desperately struggling to find redemption and a cure, he learns that violent associates from his past and federal law enforcement agents are still relentlessly in pursuit.

Kelley Jo Burke embarks on a wild journey to understand many things, including the part where her grandfather sort of murdered her grandmother. Returning to a house filled with her first memories of childhood, she begins to explore the complex origins of her own anxiety. Along the way, she reflects on alienation and immigration, mental health and generational trauma, and the nature of memory itself. A memoir filled with raw honesty, comedy, tragedy, and grace.

This is my true life story growing up with dyslexia. How I almost allowed dyslexia to destroy my life. The education system failed me. I slipped through the cracks. Dyslexia controlled most of my life. I could still have a life without reading and writing. I was able to get married. Raise a family and run my own business. How my whole world changed overnight. For 62 years, I stayed silent.

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”.

Pulling back the veil of disability, the family’s journey offers insights and understanding about the inherent complexities of daily life. With a son labelled "disabled", the family is committed to fostering a “good life” for Matthew. Standing against ingrained societal tendencies that patronize and marginalize people with disabilities, they reject segregated approaches.

Shot point-blank in the side of the neck, Michael Kiel was completely paralyzed from the neck down on April 16, 1993. As a 19-year-old sophomore at Penn State - Altoona campus, the world he knew vanished. It was turned upside down and inside out, and the next four months in the hospital and rehab center would test every fiber of his being. This memoir is about his perspective on life - his entire life - before, during, and after a life-altering spinal cord injury.

A displaced person (now called refugee or economic migrant), aged 19, escapes in 1950 from behind the Iron Curtain with his mother's and her friends' help. He maneuvers through minefields and swims across icy waters and past Russian patrols to reach Salzburg and then Switzerland, hoping to catch up with his brother (who by then had migrated to Australia). He makes it back again, falls in love, but then emigrates to Canada to start a new life, gets to University in Toronto, and is then joined by his mother after escaping in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising.

Life is hard. Add in a disability, and it can be even more challenging. Tait knows. In My Name Is Tait, Tait writes about his successes, challenges, and hard times as he faces a world that doesn’t always accept his disability. In this book, you’ll have a front seat as Tait shares his thoughts on disability, family, education, work experience, and much more.

Just before Christmas in 2012, at age 53, John LeMieux lost his left leg to a recurrence of sarcoma. The unique 20-hour rotationplasty surgery - never done on a man his age - was followed by six months of bed rest. It was only the beginning of years of physical, spiritual, and emotional growth. In this memoir, John recounts the lows and highs of a life forever altered.

A journal-style book of what it's like to live with mental illness. Everyone is different, but this is how I experience mental illness every day.

An eight-year-old boy survives triple-limb amputation by freight train. One of America’s famous yet untold stories of overcoming the stigma of disability and responding with inspirational resilience. To change your perspective on life, listen now! Boy Interrupted takes the listener on Ricky’s remarkable journey of miraculous survival, the power of kindness, humor, mistakes, post-traumatic growth, and other surprises.

The book is an exciting true story filled with adventure and humorous anecdotes. The narrative starts by providing a background from earlier ancestors - through four generations. The author gives a unique account, beginning in Chipinge, located in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands. The villagers are confused by the ambiguous nature of how their ancestral land changed ownership.

This collection of poems was written from the day the author was sent to the emergency room through her first phase of radiation and chemotherapy treatment. Christina uses poetry to share her lived experience as a teacher, a patient, a psychologist, and a neurodivergent person. Kiss Your Brain: Diagnosis Diaries shares poems that fit under the categories of “on beautiful brains", “on resilience", and “on renewal".

Graham Hale Gardner died before turning 23 and never learned to walk or speak due to severe cerebral palsy complicated by epilepsy. Yet he left a legacy of love and compassion that deeply moved scores of people from widely different backgrounds. Graham’s story, written through the eyes of his father, speaks of the enormous legacy left by a boy who never spoke. A story that raises provocative questions about the “invisible lines of connection” that make us human.

À 35 ans, Hugues réalise qu’il a vécu toute sa vie avec l’autisme (asperger) sans le savoir. Tous ses souvenirs sont à revoir à la lumière de cette nouvelle perspective. Il entreprend d’écrire une autobiographie dans le but de définir son identité, de construire enfin une histoire cohérente avec cette suite de souvenirs qui n’avaient jamais fait de sens.

Waste no day to achieve the impossible! When Pennsylvania started testing newborns for metabolic diseases, Adam Settle was one of the first to be diagnosed with Cobalamin-C Deficiency. Legally blind and mentally delayed, Adam never let his limitations hold him back from accomplishing his dreams. His love for people and his desire to help others comes through the sections of this audiobook. Whatever has been holding you back, this audiobook will help you charge through the obstacles you face to achieve the impossible. Adam’s story will inspire, encourage, and give you hope.

After three long years, Johnny’s young son, Sam, experiences a breakthrough. But even as calm comes to Sam's body, the illness makes off with his mind. Violent outbursts, strange obsessions - what has happened to his sweet boy? Cinematically weaving three generations of fatherhood, Remember, You’re the Greatest is a memoir of hard questions. Of unexpected joy in the ache of mystery. And the power of a special needs child to teach a father what greatness truly looks like.

Frank Rivera is an advocate for not only Sarcoidosis, but also for the rare disease and chronic pain community. This audiobook is about how to rise above adversity and the strength of one person. One person can make a difference if you work hard. Frank has dealt with adversity as a child with leukemia. His mother having health issues herself taught him strength and love. He fought through tough times during his childhood to only find out as an adult, after misdiagnosis, he has a rare disease that has no cure.

My audiobook is about Aden and his journey and his constant battle in life, from childhood to his adult life. The story of how he struggled for years unaware of his dyslexia or his Scotopic Sensitivity \ syndrome until he was fully assessed at the age of 40. This audiobook seeks to inspire others to understand dyslexia and to help them face criticism and discrimination. Over the years, Aden had to overcome insurmountable obstacles in life. His determination to succeed came from these very rejections and insults.

Through his unique blend of good Scottish humor, real-life experiences, and funny stories of mishaps and misadventures, Iain M. MacLeod draws the listener into his vibrant life from childhood to the present - a life not defined by cerebral palsy, which he has had since the age of three.

Parenting can be a struggle, especially parenting a disabled child. In this flawlessly crafted memoir, Kramar describes championing her son, diagnosed with Sotos syndrome, through his short life. She examines the experience of loving and losing a child and reminds us that there is a way forward through the grief. Kramar’s memoir offers guidance, wisdom, and inspiration - an amazing story of redemption and hope.

After 30 years as a professor in the field of communication studies, Dr. Smith reminisces about some of his experiences and how his race and differently abled intersectionality have influenced documented encounters. As a Black and totally blind individual, he muses about how this distinction has both colored and shed light on what might have been innocuous or unremarkable encounters otherwise.

The day Ms. Meadows walked out of court victorious after her 15-year-long struggle to regain her Constitutional rights from the state of Montana and her four parents, she knew one thing for sure.... She would one day get even with the lawyers. After more than 30 years of this insanity, they have instead succeeded in creating a deeply passionate, intelligent, driven, broad-minded and crafty machine - a lady-genius with an unstoppable force. Ms. Meadows has mastered the secret of how to beat them. Join her as she embarks on this epic journey of Changing My Perspective.

Heather M. Dakin has been legally blind since birth, but that hasn’t stopped her from making the most of life. Observations of a Blind Magician chronicles Heather’s journey - from becoming a white-cane user and later a guide-dog traveler, to her move from the United States to the United Kingdom in 2009. She highlights the challenges blind and visually impaired individuals face in various arenas of life with a touch of good-natured humor. Her story offers a new perspective on a world that few individuals ever get to see.

This is a story about a mother and son on a road trip along the Pacific Coast of Southern California. Asher is a 19-year-old child/teen/man who is diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment rendering him nonverbal, wheelchair bound, and visually impaired. Stacey is his devoted mother and a neuropsychologist who specializes in the assessment of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

When Joanne Jacobson’s writing about her mother’s respiratory illness was interrupted by her own diagnosis with a rare blood disorder, she found her perspective profoundly altered. Every Last Breath follows these two chronic illnesses as they grow unexpectedly intertwined. Rejecting a fixed, retrospective point of view and the forward-moving trajectory of conventional memoir, Jacobson brings the reader to the emotionally raw present - where potentially fatal illness and “end of life” both remain, emphatically, life.

Do you want to live? That’s the question Scott Fedor was forced to confront after he suffered a catastrophic injury while diving into a lake. His life forever changed in seconds. Facing the darkest and most debilitating days that nearly cost him his life on several occasions, Scott was determined to rekindle his spirit, ultimately discovering that the boldest of pursuits come in all shapes and sizes. Head Strong is a gripping tale of determination, perseverance, incredible faith, and human triumph that proves we are stronger than we realize.

When she is 18, Hanneke Boot discovers that painting with her mouth is easier for her than painting with her hands. Born with a muscle disease, she’s experienced a host of challenges. But she’s found her calling in art and paints everything: views, landscapes, mills, and portraits. In Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, she shares her story. Boot narrates how being born with a physical disability guarantees you will run into obstacles for life.

My wife Yash and I can vividly recall each moment related to the life of Maurya, our first-born. The arrival of our son Maurya on July 11, 2012, was a watershed moment for us. Everybody’s journey on planet Earth is different, yet there are commonalities in certain universal experiences that bind us together as a race with emotional chords.

I wrote this book to share with you; that I have cerebral palsy, but it does not define me. I hope you listen to this book; understand my challenges and successes. I live by these words “If I don’t take the challenge and do my best, I don’t taste success.” This book has short essays on the important events in my life. The chapters with poems is based on my feelings; what happens in my life.

Joe Secrist was born with a rare condition called coloboma, which means that part of the one or more structures inside an unborn baby’s eye does not fully develop during pregnancy. A coloboma occurs in about one in 10,000 births. He was not diagnosed until his early childhood and was considered the clumsy boy who crashed his bike. This is Joe’s story and his account of life during his years of abuse and neglect. Once sent away, his abuse continued at the Indiana School for the Blind. Joe has kept his silence until now.

Axel Schylströms självbiografiska "BRÄND" är en handbok i motivation och mental styrka. Som nittonåring brännskadades Axel med tredje gradens brännskador över 70% av kroppskostymen. Ofrivilligt fick han spendera över ett års tid av intensiv fysisk och psykisk rehabilitering för att överleva. Trots ärren, handikappen och den ständiga motvinden kunde ingenting stå i vägen för Axels dröm om att bli artist, och idag är han en av Sveriges mest folkkära pop-hopp.

Virginia Hall, una joven estadounidense rechazada por el Servicio de su país por ser mujer y por haber perdido la pierna izquierda, fue la primera espía en ingresar a una misión secreta en Francia durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Sus proezas son muestra del valor y la astucia que la caracterizaron como agente. Se infiltró como periodista en Vichy y en Lyon, peligrosamente cerca de los nazis; organizó una red de agentes bajo el territorio enemigo; liberó a prisioneros de situaciones que parecían irremediables; y hasta dinamitó puentes para sabotear las operaciones alemanas.