Disability Memoir

Ruth's tribe are her lively children and her filmmaker husband, Simon, who has motor neurone disease and can communicate only with his eyes. Ruth's other tribe are the friends who gather at the cove in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, and regularly throw themselves into the freezing cold water just for kicks. The Tragic Wives' Swimming Club, as they jokingly call themselves, meet to cope with the extreme challenges life puts in their way, not to mention the monster waves rolling over the horizon.

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”.

In 1959, the year Terry Galloway turned nine, the voices of everyone she loved began to disappear. No one yet knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system, eventually causing her to go deaf. As a self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children

Tara Sidhoo Fraser is thirty-one years old when a rare mutation in her brain causes a stroke. Awakening after surgery with no memory of her previous life, she attempts to piece it all back together through a haze of amnesia. Yet, as memories do begin to surface, they are seen through someone else's eyes—the person whose body she stole, whom she calls Ghost.

This is the biography of a young man with some neurological differences, written in the first person. Through his eyes, we see how he perceives his life and negotiates his reality. His world and his understandings of life may be different from the norm, but we learn to appreciate a special type of soul that should be acknowledged and celebrated as part of human diversity. This book demonstrates the love and nurturance of his mother and the dynamics of his relationship with her. We also enjoy hearing about the comfortable lifestyle that Marcelo has been given, including his worldwide travels.

From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America.

Mutter Anna Maria erlitt im Jahr 2013 eine schwere Gehirnblutung, einen Schlaganfall, welcher sie zu einem absoluten Pflegefall machte und ihren Charakter sehr wesentlich veränderte. Die Familie, Ehegatte Friedrich, genannt Fritz und Tochter Sabine (die Autorin), standen vor nie geglaubten Herausforderungen. Das Buch beschreibt sehr umfangreich die Facetten des geänderten Alltages, nimmt dabei Leser*innen sehr ehrlich auf eine „Achterbahnfahrt der Gefühle" mit.

After losing both legs from the pelvis down at the age of five, Spencer West tackled challenge after challenge, learning to navigate a world set against those with disabilities. In this deeply personal and transformative guide, he reveals how he stopped living by the expectations of others and instead embraced his true identity, passions, and purpose.

In 1959, at the age of 21, Max Starkloff was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. His doctors doubted he would live longer than a few days, and, if he survived, the hope for his quality of life would be minimal. How did this young man with barely a high school education become the leader of a powerful disability rights movement and the founder of the Starkloff Disability Institute? This is his remarkable story.

Up All Night not only grips listeners in unrelenting humor, but it offers a fresh voice embracing listeners with graphic injuries, tender recollections, big surprises, and love. Posing nuanced psychological questions while never losing its heart, Up All Night traces the challenges of living with undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome before the social disorder became known in 1992.

The life of Dr. Scott Hollier is not what you'd call typical. He is well-educated, has a good job, is a husband and father, is legally blind, loves computers and gadgets, goes to church, and enjoys travel, spending time with friends and following his favorite football team. For most people, the atypical part of this description will be "legally blind", but from Scott's perspective, it's his traitorous support of a football team outside his home state of Western Australia that makes him stand out from the crowd.

This is a very real and bloody look at the journey I made from 19 to 29. I will walk you through the icy halls of drug addiction and dealing, college in Santa Barbara (specifically Isla Vista), depression, suicide, and overdoses. The second part of the book I could only write just recently, as I was, by the Grace of God, able to live the life I knew I always should. Please come with me through the very real and honest look at what it was like to be a young man in the 2010s and how through a million close calls, I finally found life.

Discover how a woman wheelchair user with cerebral palsy found purpose in librarianship and in ordained Christian ministry. Glean hints on how to live with purpose as a person with a physical disability. Gain clues on practical everyday living with a physical disability. Gather insights as friends and health professionals on how to relate to people with a physical disability. Appreciate how Christian faith can inform and strengthen motivation in the experience of physical disability.

This book chronicles the journey of Eritrean-born Joseph Woldu. As a child refugee, he found himself having to adapt to changes of place, language, and customs; then as a man forced to relearn much of the same after involvement in a disastrous accident two days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. What makes Joseph's story so incredible is not that he survived change and tragedy, but how he continually found the strength to improve himself and his circumstances. His story reflects the importance good relationships play in our lives.

Part memoir, part cultural exploration, Articulate details a life lived among words in varied sensory forms and considers why and how those words matter. Told through rich storytelling, analysis, and humor, this is a linguistic coming-of-age in both Deaf and hearing worlds, challenging us to consider how language expresses our humanity—and offering more ways we might exist together.

Speaking My Truth is about a young man named Abdulahi Hassan who is born with a physical disability called Cerebral Palsy and tries to live a normal life. Regardless of his daily struggles he faces physically and mentally he is slowly learning to speak his truth and taking control of his own narrative one step at a time with a single beautiful smile.

She's never taught a class in her life. But when the City of Chicago calls on blind writer Beth Finke to teach a memoir-writing class for older adults, she reluctantly agrees. What she learns about her students, their stories, and herself will move and inspire you. Written the way Beth hears life, you will come to know and love Minerva, Wanda, Hannelore, and the whole colorful cast of characters who build a community around Beth's classes. Generously sprinkled with excerpts in her students' own voices, Beth's book will convince you to get your own stories down on paper.

For over twenty years, Dara Baldwin has often been the only person of color in the room when significant disability policy decisions are made. Disenfranchisement of people of color and multi-marginalized communities within the disability rights community is not new and has left many inside the community feeling frustrated and unheard. In Demanding Solidarity, Baldwin candidly shares her journey to becoming a disability activist and policymaker in DC while critiquing the disability rights community.

Kristy Sheridan survived a deadly plane crash and a sixty-foot plummet off a cliff before she learned to seek God’s will over her own desires. The crash of American Airlines Flight 1420 broke Kristy’s neck and stripped away the identity she found in her prized career. A decade later, she broke her neck again when she fell more than sixty feet down a canyon in Germany. Still, Kristy’s faith remained stagnant.

My stroke occurred on December 10, 2021. During the hours that my mind was deteriorating, my life was sent down an inevitable pathway that would include emergency medical intervention, brain surgery, and months of therapy addressing physical and emotional health as well as speech and cognitive skills. What was not inevitable in all of this was the unique inner duality that emerged. Buddy (right brain) embraced the realm of peace and tranquility. Sir! (left brain) controlled the management of the brain: order, details, time, and knowing the feeling of being in charge.