Disability Biography

Most people encounter disability at some point in their lives, either in their own bodies or through a friend or loved one. Faith leaders, sacred texts, and members of religious communities frequently offer religious teachings and metaphors as explanation for the presence of disability, but rarely do we hear the voices of people living with disabilities reflecting on their experiences of God, faith, or religious life.

In Parkinson's & Recreation 2, Dennis shares ways in which he and his wife are traversing the progression of PD and is first and foremost a written legacy he is attempting to leave for his family. As a part of this attempt, Dennis has gone on a journey of uncovering his family roots. What would you feel if you discovered Viking kings in your lineage? What would you feel if you uncovered the mystery of how the Jernigan line was woven throughout the fabric of English nobility? What would such revelations mean for you and your family?

At the age of sixty, and having lived with Parkinson’s disease for over ten years, Guy Deacon CBE set out on one last adventure: to drive solo from his home in the UK 18,000 miles and through twenty-five countries to Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa. This incredible journey, across Europe and down the full length of Africa, took the former British Army officer over twelve months. Along the way, he broke down five times, underwent one emergency evacuation, and took 3,650 prescription pills.

Martin Hibbert was left paralysed from the waist down by the Manchester Arena bombing which killed twenty-two people on 22 May 2017. Martin’s teenage daughter Eve was one of the 940 injured, in Eve’s case, gravely. The dad from Bolton has since become a leading campaigner both for victims of the atrocity and those with spinal cord injuries. Determined to make a difference he took on the ultimate challenge, scaling Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair, becoming the second paraplegic to do so, and raising a million pounds for charity.

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.

In this intimate story of relationship resilience, marine biologist Beth Mathews’s adventurous life as a professor and mother in Alaska is upended when her healthy husband is slammed by a rare type of stroke. Jim’s radical approach to recovery clashes with Beth’s instinct to keep him safe at home and sets them on a collision course as he insists on ambitious sailing expeditions with Beth and their young son in Alaska’s magnificent yet unforgiving waters.

Sam always knew he was starting life on the back foot. When his parents split, Sam, his mother and his brother had to learn to survive in a world not built for single-parent families. Add to that Sam's diagnosis with a form of dwarfism and the odds seemed stacked against them. As surgeons kept breaking and resetting Sam's legs in attempts to keep him walking, disability and poverty collided, and it took all the family's strength not to crumple in the impact. In Broke, lawyer and disability advocate Sam Drummond weaves a poignant, stirring and deeply compassionate tale of life on the fringes.

Luisa L’Audace wächst als einziges behindertes Kind in ihrem Heimatdorf auf. Warum sie im Sportunterricht immer als Letzte gewählt wird, in der Pause nicht mitspielen soll und ihre Freundinnen plötzlich nicht mehr neben ihr sitzen wollen, versteht sie lange Zeit nicht. Während andere Kinder Freizeitbeschäftigungen nachgehen, verbringt Luisa viel Zeit in Krankenhäusern, bei Therapien und Spezialist*innen. Als sie mit 14 einen Rollstuhl bekommt, fühlt sie sich zum ersten Mal in ihrem Leben frei. Doch mit der neu gewonnenen Mobilität nehmen auch die Anfeindungen zu.

When Emmett de Monterey is eighteen months old, a doctor diagnoses him with cerebral palsy. Words too big for his 25-year-old artist parents and their happy, smiling baby. Growing up in South East London in the 1980s, Emmett is spat at on the street and prayed over at church. At his school for disabled children, he's told he will be expelled if the rumours are true, if he's gay; at his mainstream school, teachers refuse to schedule his classes on the ground floor, and he loses a stone from the effort of getting up the stairs.

Stoney McGurrin, in his debut book, brings us on the adventure of his lifetime. Having spent months in the hospital as a four-year-old, where he almost lost his arm, only to have it saved by a famous French surgeon Dr. Chance, he left Leitrim as a teenager on ship across the Atlantic to New York City. The stories are exciting, sad, happy, and true; from 1941 to the present, from pencil to paper.

Bill Rush lived with a significant disability of quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He did not have use of his arms, hands, or voice. Society’s prejudices proved to be a greater obstacle than his disability in attaining his first life goal of completing college. Rush chronicled his extraordinary life from childhood until graduation from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in Journey Out of Silence, first published in 1986. This second edition brings back into print Bill's original chronicle. It also contains an introduction to Our Life Our Way, the sequel.

When a tragic accident crushes her dreams, can a young woman fight to thrive once again? As a teen growing up in the '80s, Jenny Smith loved life. But, when a spinal cord injury paralyzed her from the chest down, her days of gymnastics and playing music came to an agonizing end. Completely reliant on others for her most basic needs, privacy and independence became things of the past. Refusing to give up, Jenny struggled along the exhausting, painful, and endless road to living as a quadriplegic.

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.

Tiffani, the author, becomes an intimate friend as you speaks to you about her deepest thoughts, fears, and worries. Her love, strength, honesty, and determination to care for her family at all costs is inspiring.

"Det var inget jag hade valt, detta att inte höra ihop med dem. Det var bara så att jag inte gjorde det. Jag kunde inte ändra på det och jag visste inte vad en människa var meningen att vara. Inuti kände jag mig ledsen. Varför blev de alltid så arga? Varför begrep de inte?". Redan i tidig ålder insåg Gunilla Gerland att hon inte var som alla andra. Hon ville gärna röra vid saker som var böjda, undvek helst att tugga maten och hade ett stort behov av att få vara ifred.

For 20 years, Lisa Murphy, Jeff Murphy, and a group of volunteers traveled the world with the Mobility Project, delivering mobility to the poorest people on the planet. They helped tens of thousands of disabled poor to gain mobility and hope. The disabled received wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches from the United States, items they never would have been able to afford. Like Simon of Cyrene, we helped people carry their cross of disability. From the hot tropical jungles of Costa Rica, Thailand, and São Tomé to the deserts of Afghanistan, the disabled poor got a new chance at life.

At 90 years old and blind, Lorraine decided there was never a better time to get started as a writer. Juggling career, marriage, motherhood, and staying a vibrant senior demands constant skill upgrading. Lorraine’s early childhood development expertise, for instance, was perfected during her 81 months of pregnancy. As a first generation of Russian immigrant parents, Lorraine’s daily walk with God is a testament to her belief and love-filled life. She says, “Hope is not a plan, but it is a promise that’s given when faith and belief become action.”

Frederick Moore spent his 1950s Minneapolis childhood obsessively teaching himself guitar and writing songs. In the 1960s, his bands Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos reached local stardom. After, they put everything they had into their cars and caravanned to Los Angeles. From a garage in suburban Arleta, they evolved Skogie into a new band called The Kats. In the 1980s, The Kats sold out every major club in Los Angeles.

Si no es cada cuatro años que se celebran los paralímpicos, si no se acerca el Día Internacional de las pcd, cuando las marcas realizan acciones; si no es que el gobierno da beneficios fiscales para impulsar la inserción laboral de este grupo, el resto del tiempo las personas con discapacidad viven entre las sombras.

Do you like sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll? Do you know what jails, institutions, and death are all about? I don't want to be controlled, but can I control myself? Who says I have to live by society's rules?