Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in People with Disabilities

Untether is the story of JT Mestdagh, a young man born with a death sentence and who is now an entrepreneur and adventurer on a mission to empower people to untether from limiting beliefs and to soar to their highest dreams...Untether tells a story of courage, determination, and overcoming. Young or not-so-young, you will come away with a renewed sense of hope and possibility. Learn that you are not a mistake; you are created for something amazing.

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.

Living in the Belgian Congo with her husband in the 1960s, Fran’s mother became pregnant with a daughter. However, right after she gave birth in the hospital, she felt strange. Unbeknownst to anyone, another daughter was on the way, but before anybody responded, an hour had passed. Because of the delay, Fran was born with cerebral palsy. Growing up with her siblings in Africa, Fran always felt different. When everyone else was playing and having fun, she would watch and wish she could join in.

By the time native Sicilian Mariagrazia Buttitta turned 26, she’d planned out the perfect life. After finishing her residency in Buongiorno Medical School, she’d be primed for a job at the prestigious Roma Hospital, the first step toward becoming an Italian Dr. Oz. Instead, she wakes up to discover a medical diagnosis that leaves her almost completely blind. Her family, frustrated and desperate, seeks medical aid in the US, but it comes with a steep price.

Born deaf and discovering encroaching blindness at the age of 16, Anthony Lawton’s future appeared to be full of locked doors. Prejudice. Delayed education. Distorted speech. Limited sight. But when benign strangers intercede and inner gifts reveal themselves the opportunity to pursue a childhood dream of speaking and participating in mainstream society become a realisable vision. He would need to do this before the consequences of dual sensory loss would again close the doors.

In Turning Tragedy Into Triumph, Michael Bush fearlessly opens up about his extraordinary battle with both mental health challenges and the harrowing ordeal of fighting and surviving stage 4 cancer. Through gripping honesty and unwavering vulnerability, Bush takes listeners on an emotional rollercoaster, from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of triumph, demonstrating the indomitable human spirit's capacity for resilience and transformation.

Elaine, What Happened? A History follows the thirty year life of Elaine who was born without eyes and had other deformities. Besides trying to find out what caused her defects, it is a history of the changes that took place in the medical field, in public education and most notably in society's customs and attitudes regarding people with disabilities.

If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown, and women over size zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you're, gasp... disabled? Whatever body you’re born into, the pressure to be normal is everywhere. But have you ever met a normal person? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat for breakfast? And what the **** does normal mean anyway?

In Everything Is Going to be K.O. Kaiya Stone writes about her own experiences of living with specific learning difficulties: from struggling at school to being diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia while at university, to performing her own one-woman stand up show inspired by her journey. Always funny and unfailingly honest, Kaiya outlines the frustrations of having SPLDS but also the ways in which they have fuelled her creativity.

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.

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.

Mothering under normal circumstances takes all you have to give. But what happens when your child is disabled, and sacrificing all you've got and more is the only hope for a decent future? Full of rage and resilience, duty and love, Ashley Bristowe delivers a mother's voice like no other we've heard.

For two decades a father kept a secret journal documenting the life of his only son, Christopher, who was born profoundly deaf. He had a simple dream of someday presenting that journal to Christopher as a special gift from father to son. But as each new challenge was surmounted, it became clear Christopher Caulfield’s story had to be shared.

When adventurous overseas traveler, Amy, is diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, she has no idea what difficulties lie ahead. After finishing mobility training from the Bureau of Blindness, she thinks her problems are solved, but when Amy tackles the streets with her white cane, the real fun begins. Determinedly sweeping away her fears, she starts to celebrate the reality of vision-impaired independence. Join the chaos and laughter in this series of uplifting anecdotes as Amy looks to the lighter side of mobility.

This honest, outspoken, and thought-provoking memoir by award-winning writer and appearance activist Carly Findlay will challenge all your assumptions and beliefs about what it is like to have a visibly different appearance. Carly lives with a rare skin condition, Ichthyosis, and what she faces every day, and what she has to live with, will have you cheering for her and her courage and irrepressible spirit. This is both a moving memoir and a proud manifesto on disability and appearance diversity issues.

“At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them.” The Story of My Life, Helen Keller’s autobiography, is the story of that unfolding. It is the story of how, with Anne Sullivan as her guide, Keller developed from “a mass of possibilities” to become one of the most beloved and admired women in American history. With intelligence, humor and wisdom, Keller describes her passage, “from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.”

Daddy Won’t Let Mom Drive the Car: True Tales of Parenting in the Dark is a book of short vignettes - most of them lighthearted, a few more serious - about my life as the blind mother of a sighted daughter. Welcome to my journey! My blindness has changed a few practical logistics. But in the end, kids are kids and moms are moms, and the dents and delights of parenthood are universal.

Now you can go where no one has been before: deep inside a mind with high-functioning autism. In his roller coaster of a life, Dylan Volk (aka Dielawn) has lived all over the country, tried to fit in with many different crowds, and been in jail a few times. Now he has written a tell-all book to give you all the juicy details. Don't listen to this book before you go to sleep - you may be up all night!

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.

At 35, the same age as his mother when she had her accident, Mitch began experiencing symptoms of primary progressive multiple sclerosis, a particularly disabling form of MS, and his physical challenges grew to resemble his mother’s. In the ensuing years, he muddled through the ethical swampland of clinical trials, navigated the minefield of experimental treatments, and became a popular blogger and disability advocate. Equal parts entertaining and inspiring, Enjoying the Ride tells an extraordinary mother and son story.