Download or read book The Only Way to Live My Life and Coping with ALS written by Michael Boman and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Only Way to Live" is a quick read filled with many entertaining stories. Michael has not held back anything in this book - brutal honesty and vulnerability when he talks about going from a life of non-stop adventure to his latest challenge of life - fighting ALS. An amazing tale of a kid with all the odds against him, moving all over the country multiple times with multiple family members in and out of his life, growing up and working hard to get what he wants in a career. Throughout the childhood stories, his young adult escapades, and through his years starting his career, it is apparent that Michael lives life to the fullest!
Download or read book We Know How This Ends written by Bruce H. Kramer and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nautilus Book Awards — Silver Award Winner 2010 had been a very good year for Bruce H. Kramer. But what began as a floppy foot and leg weakness led to a shattering diagnosis: he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is a cruel, unrelenting neurodegenerative disease in which the body’s muscles slowly weaken, including those used to move, swallow, talk, and ultimately breathe. There is no cure: ALS is a death sentence. When death is a constant companion, sitting too closely beside you at the dinner table, coloring your thoughts and feelings and words, your outlook on life is utterly transformed. The perspective and insights offered in We Know How This Ends reveal this daily reality and inspire a way forward for anyone who has suffered major loss and for anyone who surely will. Rather than wallowing in sadness and bitterness, anger and denial, Kramer accepted the crushing diagnosis. The educator and musician recognized that if he wanted a meaningful life, then embracing his imminent death was his only viable option. His decision was the foundation for profound, personal reflection and growth, even as his body weakened, and inspired him to share the lessons he was learning from ALS about how to live as fully as possible, even in the midst of devastating grief. At the time Kramer was diagnosed, broadcast journalist Cathy Wurzer was struggling with her own losses, especially her father’s slow descent into the bewildering world of dementia. Mutual friends put this unlikely pair—journalist and educator—together, and the serendipitous result has been a series of remarkable broadcast conversations, a deep friendship, and now this book. Written with wisdom, genuine humor, and down-to-earth observations, We Know How This Ends is far more than a memoir. It is a dignified, courageous, and unflinching look at how acceptance of loss and inevitable death can lead us all to a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
Download or read book Navigating Life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis written by Mark B. Bromberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navigating Life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis provides accessible, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about the challenges patients, family members, and caregivers face when confronted by ALS, a disease that affects approximately 5,600 Americans every year, with as many as 30,000 people managing the disease at any given time. ALS is a difficult disease for the patient and is also challenging for the caregiver and family as there are many questions, issues relating to care, and problems to manage. This guide covers all aspects of managing ALS, from the onset of symptoms, diagnosis, treatments, and coping strategies, to the use of home health care or hospice, and new research in the field. The book also sheds lights on difficult topics, such as end-of-life care and managing legal affairs. Navigating Life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is unique because it covers two perspectives: one author is a neurologist with 30 years of experience treating ALS patients, and the other author experienced first-hand the issues in providing care for a parent with ALS. Formatted in a question-and-answer style, peppered throughout with patient stories, and with sections devoted to family members and caregivers, this compassionate resource provides guidance to those seeking to understand how to live with this disease.
Download or read book Coping with Physical Loss and Disability written by Rick Ritter and published by Loving Healing Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This workbook, written by a disabled veteran and social worker, provides more than 50 questions and exercises designed to empower those with physical loss and disability to better understand and accept their ongoing processes of loss and recovery.
Download or read book Why I m No Longer Talking to White People About Race written by Reni Eddo-Lodge and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak' The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today. THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION NARRATIVE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR A BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD
Download or read book What Can a Body Do written by Sara Hendren and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and LitHub Winner of the 2021 Science in Society Journalism Book Prize A fascinating and provocative new way of looking at the things we use and the spaces we inhabit, and a call to imagine a better-designed world for us all. Furniture and tools, kitchens and campuses and city streets—nearly everything human beings make and use is assistive technology, meant to bridge the gap between body and world. Yet unless, or until, a misfit between our own body and the world is acute enough to be understood as disability, we may never stop to consider—or reconsider—the hidden assumptions on which our everyday environment is built. In a series of vivid stories drawn from the lived experience of disability and the ideas and innovations that have emerged from it—from cyborg arms to customizable cardboard chairs to deaf architecture—Sara Hendren invites us to rethink the things and settings we live with. What might assistance based on the body’s stunning capacity for adaptation—rather than a rigid insistence on “normalcy”—look like? Can we foster interdependent, not just independent, living? How do we creatively engineer public spaces that allow us all to navigate our common terrain? By rendering familiar objects and environments newly strange and wondrous, What Can a Body Do? helps us imagine a future that will better meet the extraordinary range of our collective needs and desires.
Download or read book My Life as a Male Anorexic written by Michael Krasnow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Life as a Male Anorexic is a uniquely male point of view of anorexia nervosa. It is the autobiographical account of a young man’s ongoing struggle with anorexia. Michael shared his story as part of the featured health segment “Men Dying to be Thin” on WSVN Channel 7 News in Miami, Florida, in May 1997. Michael Krasnow has had anorexia since 1984, and he chronicles his daily struggles, feelings, and experiences in this book. He writes in a relaxed, easygoing manner that makes the book appealing to all readers. While ignoring statistics and not pretending to be an expert on the disorder, Michael simply tells readers what his life is like and how anorexia has affected--even controlled--it. As of today, Michael has maintained his weight at 75 pounds on a 5-foot, 9-inch frame. Anyone who suffers, or anyone who knows someone who suffers from, anorexia will learn that male anorexia is a serious problem and that there needs to be psychological and medical help for the boys and men who struggle with anorexia. As Michael begins his book, “For years, anorexia existed, but very few people knew of it. Women who suffered from it did not realize that they were not alone. Eventually, as more became known and anorexia became more publicized, a greater number of women came forward to seek help, no longer feeling that they would be considered strange or outcasts from society. Maybe with the publication of this book, more men with the problem will realize that they are not alone either, and that they do not suffer from a ‘woman’s disease.’They can come forward without worrying about embarrassment.” Michael’s story will baffle, frustrate, sadden, and irritate readers, whether they are interested in the human side of Michael’s story, whether they are workers in the medical field--psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, aides, social workers, mental health counselors--or whether they are teachers, coworkers, friends, or relatives of a male with anorexia. My Life as a Male Anorexic begins to shed light on the little-known or discussed problem of male anorexia nervosa.
Download or read book ALS written by Eliot H. Dunsky and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-11-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eliot H. Dunsky, MD, is a retired physician who since his diagnosis in 2009 has been living with ALS, the complex, progressively debilitating disorder commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Determined to maintain the best quality of life possible-for as long as possible-he extensively researched the condition and its management. As he immersed himself, talking to ALS patients and exploring emerging assistive technologies and aids, he realized that misunderstanding of this complicated disease was rife, preventing many from making the most of the precious years left. The result is this compilation of not only his personal experiences as his own condition advanced but also current research and links to additional specialized resources. Its aim is to help other patients learn to live with their diagnosis and navigate the day-to-day struggles associated with it. Appropriate symptom management can help fend off the devastating effects of the disease for a longer period of time. ALS: An Orientation offers a practical guide for patients and their families on maximizing quality of life through strategic care and, importantly, coping with the emotional toll the disease can take. A terminal diagnosis simply means savoring to the fullest the life that is still possible.
Download or read book How We Hope written by Adrienne Martin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-22 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What exactly is hope and how does it influence our decisions? In How We Hope, Adrienne Martin presents a novel account of hope, the motivational resources it presupposes, and its function in our practical lives. She contends that hoping for an outcome means treating certain feelings, plans, and imaginings as justified, and that hope thereby involves sophisticated reflective and conceptual capacities. Martin develops this original perspective on hope--what she calls the "incorporation analysis"--in contrast to the two dominant philosophical conceptions of hope: the orthodox definition, where hoping for an outcome is simply desiring it while thinking it possible, and agent-centered views, where hoping for an outcome is setting oneself to pursue it. In exploring how hope influences our decisions, she establishes that it is not always a positive motivational force and can render us complacent. She also examines the relationship between hope and faith, both religious and secular, and identifies a previously unnoted form of hope: normative or interpersonal hope. When we place normative hope in people, we relate to them as responsible agents and aspire for them to overcome challenges arising from situation or character. Demonstrating that hope merits rigorous philosophical investigation, both in its own right and in virtue of what it reveals about the nature of human emotion and motivation, How We Hope offers an original, sustained look at a largely neglected topic in philosophy.
Download or read book Dying Well written by Ira Byock and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-03-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ira Byock, prominent palliative care physician and expert in end of life decisions, a lesson in Dying Well. Nobody should have to die in pain. Nobody should have to die alone. This is Ira Byock's dream, and he is dedicating his life to making it come true. Dying Well brings us to the homes and bedsides of families with whom Dr. Byock has worked, telling stories of love and reconciliation in the face of tragedy, pain, medical drama, and conflict. Through the true stories of patients, he shows us that a lot of important emotional work can be accomplished in the final months, weeks, and even days of life. It is a companion for families, showing them how to deal with doctors, how to talk to loved ones—and how to make the end of life as meaningful and enriching as the beginning. Ira Byock is also the author of The Best Care Possible: A Physician's Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life.
Download or read book The End of Life Handbook written by David Feldman and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book address both the emotional and psychological issues associated with death and dying and the practical and medical realities typically dealt with at this time-unusual among titles in this subject area. The authors, a psychologist and medical doctor, are passionate advocates for quality end-of-life care. Author Feldman's background in positive psychology brings an emphasis on hope, inspiration, meaning, and human connection at the end of life to the book. As medical technology progresses and life expectancies edge upward, families are being faced with ever-more-complicated choices as loved ones approach their final hours. This book offers readers much-needed guidance and support for making these often difficult decisions.
Download or read book Never Good Enough written by Monica Ramirez Basco and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000-03-02 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This practical guide to overcoming the dangers of being a perfectionist--from debilitating feelings of self-doubt to difficulties with other people--shows readers how their perfectionist tendencies can actually help them succeed.
Download or read book Coping with Chronic Illness written by H. Norman Wright and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 1 in 2 Americans suffer from some chronic condition—either an illness like fibromyalgia or conditions such as migraine headaches or chronic neck and back pain. With numbers like these, it’s fair to say we have a health crisis on our hands. Respected therapist H. Norman Wright, along with Lynn Ellis, a researcher with firsthand experience with fibromyalgia, lupus, and chronic fatigue, shares practical, hopeful answers for those who suffer from what are often called “invisible illnesses.” Readers will benefit from realizing they are not alone even if others don’t understand what they are experiencing. They will also find helpful ideas for managing relationships with their doctors and their families insight into God’s perspective and caring for those who suffer practical ways to manage the stress, fear, and depression that often comes with chronic illness Coping with Chronic Illness is the perfect resource for those who struggle as well as for their families and friends, lay counselors, medical professionals, and pastors.
Download or read book Share the Care written by Cappy Capossela and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You Don't Have to Do It Alone Whether you're prepared for it or not, chances are you'll take on the role of caregiver when a family member or friend is affected by a serious illness or injury, or when you find your elderly parent needs help. As you'll soon discover, the range of tasks and responsibilities involved are overwhelming. Share The Care offers a sensible and loving solution: a unique group approach that can turn a circle of ordinary people into a powerful caregiving team. Share The Care shows you how to: Create a caregiver "family" from friends, real family members, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances. Hold a meeting to organize your group, and introduce members to the Share The Care systems that guarantee every job will be done and no one person will have to do too much. Discover the hidden talents within the group, make the most of their resources, cope with group issues, and stay together in the face of adversity. Included here are valuable guidelines, compassionate suggestions, and a simple-to-use workbook section that together offer support to free the patient from worry and the caregivers from burnout. Share The Care offers friends and family the best answer ever to the frequently asked question "What can I do?"
Download or read book I Had a Black Dog written by Matthew Johnstone and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I Had a Black Dog says with wit, insight, economy and complete understanding what other books take 300 pages to say. Brilliant and indispensable.' - Stephen Fry 'Finally, a book about depression that isn't a prescriptive self-help manual. Johnston's deftly expresses how lonely and isolating depression can be for sufferers. Poignant and humorous in equal measure.' Sunday Times There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. Matthew Johnstone, a sufferer himself, has written and illustrated this moving and uplifting insight into what it is like to have a Black Dog as a companion and how he learned to tame it and bring it to heel.
Download or read book Every Note Played written by Lisa Genova and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unsparing in her depiction of the disease’s harrowing effects, neuroscientist Genova also celebrates humanity.” —People “Sometimes it’s easier to tell truth in fiction…And she tells it with heart and hope.” —NPR “Her juxtaposition of scientific detail with compassionate, heartfelt storytelling is unparalleled.” —Bookreporter “Every Note Played will grip and gut you.” —The Boston Globe From neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice comes a powerful exploration of regret, forgiveness, freedom, and what it means to be alive. An accomplished concert pianist, Richard received standing ovations from audiences all over the world in awe of his rare combination of emotional resonance and flawless technique. Every finger of his hands was a finely calibrated instrument, dancing across the keys and striking each note with exacting precision. That was eight months ago. Richard now has ALS, and his entire right arm is paralyzed. His fingers are impotent, still, devoid of possibility. The loss of his hand feels like a death, a loss of true love, a divorce—his divorce. He knows his left arm will go next. Three years ago, Karina removed their framed wedding picture from the living room wall and hung a mirror there instead. But she still hasn’t moved on. Karina is paralyzed by excuses and fear, stuck in an unfulfilling life as a piano teacher, afraid to pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman, blaming Richard and their failed marriage for all of it. When Richard becomes increasingly paralyzed and is no longer able to live on his own, Karina becomes his reluctant caretaker. As Richard’s muscles, voice, and breath fade, both he and Karina try to reconcile their past before it’s too late. Poignant and powerful, Every Note Played is a masterful exploration of redemption and what it means to find peace inside of forgiveness.
Download or read book Palliative Care in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis written by David Oliver and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or motor neurone disease) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that can cause profound suffering for both the patient and their family. Whilst new treatments for ALS are being developed, these are not curative and offer only the potential to slow its progression. Palliative care must therefore be integral to the clinical approach to the disease. Palliative Care in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: From diagnosis to bereavement reflects the wide scope of this care; it must cover not just the terminal phase, but support the patient and their family from the onset of the disease. Both the multidisciplinary palliative care team and the neurology team are essential in providing a high standard of care and allowing quality of life (both patient and carer) to be maintained. Clear guidelines are provided to address care throughout the disease process. Control of symptoms is covered alongside the psychosocial care of patients and their families. Case studies are used to emphasise the complexity of the care needs and involvement of the patient and family, culminating in discussion of bereavement. Different models of care are explored, and this new edition utilizes the increase in both the evidence-base and available literature on the subject. New topics discussed include complementary therapies, personal and family experiences of ALS, new genetics research, and updated guidelines for patient care, to ensure this new edition remains the essential guide to palliative care in ALS.
