Showing titles in People with Disabilities

Left partially paralysed below the rib cage by polio, Anne Wafula Strike was forced to flee her native Kenyan village, moving across the country with her family. After overcoming additional adversity, including the loss of her mother and ableist prejudice, Anne moved to the UK, where she discovered her talent for wheelchair racing. The first East African to compete in her sport, representing Kenya in the 2004 Paralympics before joining Paralympics GB, Anne is now a fierce advocate for the promotion of the games around the world, and a champion of disabled rights.

Thousands of soldiers die every year to defend their country. United States Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills was sure that he would become another statistic when, during his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, he was caught in an IED blast four days before his 25th birthday. Against the odds, he lived, but at a severe cost - Travis became one of only five soldiers from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to survive a quadruple amputation.

Our aim with this narrative is to share our journey through the labyrinth of cancer treatment—the decisions we faced, the paths we chose, and, most importantly, the lessons we learned. We hope to offer guidance, support, and perhaps a sense of solidarity to others who find themselves on a similar journey. This is not your typical medical guide; it is a well-researched companion for every aspect of your cancer journey and a deeply personal account of battling cancer from the perspective of a spouse.

Arriving in the UK from Jamaica at the tender age of 14, Keisha shares her empowering lived experiences growing up with undiagnosed Dyslexia and Dyspraxia, while facing several intersectional challenges that include culture, race, and the UK education system.

Tommy Jessop is a multi-award winning actor, theatre performer, and campaigner. Tommy has been at the vanguard of bringing awareness of the potential of people living with Down syndrome to the media, and to government. A Life Worth Living will be Tommy's story - from his journey into acting and campaigning while showing his unstoppable determination, charisma, and love for life.

Imagine if you were to lose your sight? Would it feel like the end of everything worthwhile? There is a way forward. Once you realise that blindness is a word and not a sentence, life takes on a new perspective. There are ways to thrive with vision loss. This book reveals how to turn such a life-challenge into a lifestyle you can fully manage and enjoy.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind”. For millennia, blind­ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Blinded at age three, Mike May defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem-cell transplant surgery could restore May's vision.

Le 8 décembre 1995, à la suite d’un accident vasculaire cérébral, Jean-Dominique Bauby est plongé dans un coma profond. Quand il en sort, toutes ses fonctions motrices sont détériorées. Atteint de ce qu'on appelle le " locked-in syndrome ", il est littéralement enfermé à l'intérieur de lui-même ; il ne peut plus bouger, manger, parler ou même simplement respirer sans assistance. Dans ce corps inerte, seul un œil bouge.

What if you found out in mid-life that you were autistic? Kathleen was diagnosed in midlife with autism, and in her new book, U Don’t Seem Autistic, she bravely shares her personal story. This is a story of empowerment by the discovery of autistic identity, at last! By sharing the pitfalls she has experienced up to mid-life and their relationship to autism, she hopes to help others to seek a diagnosis, as she states women are missed or misdiagnosed due to the gender inequities of diagnosis.

Vaneetha Risner contracted polio as an infant, was misdiagnosed, and lived with widespread paralysis. She lived in and out of the hospital for 10 years and, after each stay, would return to a life filled with bullying. When she became a Christian, though, she thought things would get easier, and they did: carefree college days, a dream job in Boston, and an MBA from Stanford where she met and married a classmate. But life unraveled. Again.

An inspiring and unforgettable memoir that provides hope to others who are experiencing depression, mania, or psychosis, RESILIENT is a deeply personal account about life with mental illness, hearing loss and resiliency. Liz's journey provides encouragement for patients, families, friends, and healthcare workers by showing that recovery is possible.

Lissa Bachner was born with a passion for horses and won her first blue ribbon at age five. Other awards would follow as a young rider, and for years Lissa trained with jumpers, tackling more difficult leaps, and working to perfect her ride. When blindness struck in her teens, it appeared her passion for riding would come to an end. How could she jump hurdles when she could barely navigate through her own home? But success, trust, and love came to Lissa when her trainer convinced her to buy a "diamond in the rough" from Germany.

Hiroshima was one of the great tragedies of WWII. But out of the devastation of the first atomic bomb, some survivors emerged, 25 courageous Japanese women who became part of a remarkable humanitarian epic. Victims of the atomic blast that ushered in the Nuclear Age, these women were brought to the United States in 1955, where they underwent reconstructive surgery to repair the ravages of the bomb. Schoolgirls when the bomb destroyed their futures, they began to remake their lives and re-create themselves. This is the compassionate, often bittersweet chronicle of the Hiroshima Maidens.

Le 3 avril 2015, on diagnostique à Marine, jeune étudiante dynamique de 21 ans, une sclérose en plaques, appelée plus communément SEP. L'urgence de la situation, le besoin de prendre une décision quant à la prise d'un traitement ou non et le manque d'informations, l'amène à s'interroger. "La maladie c'est toi qui l'as, il faut donc chercher la solution en toi." Son traitement ? Réaliser un projet rêvé : le voyage.

After a diagnosis of a degenerative eye disease, John Samuel’s life—and his chance at success—started to vanish. In a world systemically unequipped for accessibility, disability inclusion is often left out of conversations about diversity. For people with disabilities, it can feel impossible to adapt and thrive when you’re already set up for failure.

Whether you’re facing your own hip replacement surgery or want to train for something like a triathlon, or you simply find yourself facing extreme challenges in your own life, this book is your guide to putting steel in your bones and doing what you may never have thought was possible.

It never gets better, but it does get easier. That’s the first thing Roz says to anyone who asks him for advice. Anyone who’s fighting like hell, just hanging on or putting the pieces back together. When you’re broken, fixed becomes an obsession.

Greg Marshall's early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the nineties) and you'll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he's crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings.

In 1895, a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine Hathaway, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her from becoming a “hunchback” like the “little locksmith” who does odd jobs at her family’s home. Forced to endure her confinement for ten years, Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that none of it has prevented her from developing a deformity of her own.