Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in People with Disabilities

For years, Emma Carey was a regular young adult who would wake up and go about their day on autopilot, someone who would look at a sunset and feel unaffected, someone who was living, but not really alive. That is, until something happened that enabled her to really see life for the gift it is. Emma was in a skydiving accident that made her a paraplegic. This book is not just about Emma's fall from the sky and how she learned to walk without ever regaining feeling in her legs but also about the beliefs and ideas that helped her survive.

When Molly Burke was four years old, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare degenerative eye disease that leads to eventual blindness, forcing her to see the world through new eyes—literally. Growing up disabled didn’t stop her from playing sports, becoming a rock-climbing instructor, or winning a beauty pageant, but other people’s narrow perceptions of her held her back. Years of relentless bullying, toxic work environments, a rodent-infested apartment, and life’s lowest moments were juxtaposed with red carpets, first-class flights, and personal and professional achievements.

The astonishing life story from one of Australia's most inspirational athletes. Dylan Alcott has never let his disability get in the way of what he wanted to achieve. His family treated him no differently to any other kid, and it was the best thing they ever did. Growing up, Dylan always had a positive attitude to life. So when he discovered sport, he’d have a go at anything and could always be found at the centre of the action, giving his best and playing to win. Then he tried wheelchair basketball and tennis and was hooked.

Clem Bastow grew up feeling like she’d missed a key memo on human behaviour. She found the unspoken rules of social engagement confusing, arbitrary and often stressful. Friendships were hard, relationships harder and the office was a fluorescent-lit nightmare of anxiety. It wasn’t until Clem was diagnosed as autistic, at age 36, that things clicked into focus. Clem reflects as an autistic adult on her formative experiences as an undiagnosed young person, from the asphalt playground of St Joseph's Primary School in Melbourne to working as an entertainment journalist in Hollywood.

Growing Up Disabled in Australia is the fifth book in the highly acclaimed, best-selling Growing Up series. It includes interviews with prominent Australians such as Senator Jordon Steele-John and Paralympian Isis Holt.

A puddle of water on a highway changed Dinesh Palipana's life forever. Halfway through medical school, Dinesh was involved in a catastrophic car accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury. After his accident, his strength and determination saw him return to complete medical school—now with quadriplegia. Dinesh was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland, and the second person with quadriplegia to graduate medical school in Australia. Despite all of the pain and hardship he's faced, Dinesh now sees his accident as a turning point for the better in his life.

As Harry Potter's stunt double, David Holmes's amazing gymnastic skills saw him earn onscreen immortality. He was the first-ever person to play Quidditch on a broomstick; he dodged dragon's fire and dove deep into the Great Lake, without any gillyweed to protect him. Life on set was an adventure. He and Daniel Radcliffe became like brothers, and the cast and crew a second family. Then tragedy struck. During the making of Deathly Hallows Part 1 a stunt went badly wrong and David's spinal cord snapped. He was only 25 and would never walk again.

The modern world is built for neurotypicals. Needless noise, bright flashing lights, small talk, implication and ‘unwritten rules’; it can be a nightmarish dystopia as far as the autistic population is concerned. In Untypical, Pete Wharmby lays bare the experience of being ‘different’, explaining with wit and warmth just how exhausting it is to fit into a world not designed for you.

When Roger Rasmussen was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019, he did what most patients do: listened carefully, weighed his options, and tried to make peace with the life-altering decisions ahead. Then he heard about Joe Tippens' story, which led him down a rabbit hole of research into something unexpected—a compound called fenbendazole with curious case reports and a growing collection of personal accounts.

Klim's journey to greatness began behind the Iron Curtain, in communist-era Poland. His family made a bid for freedom in the 1980s and immigrated to Australia, where swimming became his passport into a new culture and eventually led him to become one of his adopted country's great sporting heroes. His crowning moment came at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he captured the hearts of millions with his gold medal performances and world record-breaking swims. But being a champion athlete does not come without personal challenges.

Hannah Diviney has always known that her experience of the world was fundamentally different from those around her. While her friends went to soccer and dance and little athletics, Hannah was going to physio and doctors' appointments. While her friends got jobs, fell in love and went clubbing, Hannah surrounded herself with the fantastical worlds she found in books. But books where people like her were nowhere to be found. Refusing to accept the narratives, or lack thereof, that she'd been given, Hannah was determined to forge her own path in a world that wasn't designed for her.

Robert Hoge was born with a giant tumour on his forehead, severely distorted facial features and legs that were twisted and useless. His mother refused to look at her son, let alone bring him home. But home he went, to a life that, against the odds, was filled with joy, optimism and boyhood naughtiness. Home for the Hoges was a bayside suburb of Brisbane. Robert's parents, Mary and Vince, knew that his life would be difficult, but they were determined to give him a typical Australian childhood.

Living with AuDHD is like being a unicorn—misunderstood, contradictory, and often invisible to others. You shine with creativity and innovation, but struggle to fit in — always feeling 'too much'. Autism and ADHD pull you in opposite directions, creating a lifetime of contradictions no one else can see. AuDHD isn’t listed in diagnostic manuals because until 2013, you couldn’t be diagnosed with both conditions — despite a co-occurrence rate of approximately 50-70%. These two neurotypes often clash, like opposing magnets in the brain. ADHD craves novelty; autism resists change.

On Boxing Day 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, in a pool of blood, he was horrified to realise he had lost the use of his limbs. He could no longer walk, write or wash himself. He could do nothing without the help of others, and required constant care in a hospital. So began an odyssey of a year through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home, to his house in London.

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.

Often used as a shorthand for tidiness or as the punchline of a joke, OCD is one of society’s most misunderstood disorders and it’s rarely spoken about with such honesty and openness. Beautifully written, moving and often darkly funny, Tuppence recounts what it feels like to share your mind with a nest of scorpions.

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism - because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us.

Gracie wrote Comfort in Darkness after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a terminal sentence which he views as the greatest fight of his life, one he knows he will eventually lose. This is Gracie’s defining life statement about his spiritual and technical practice. For the first time, he reveals his time-tested theories and techniques of invisible Jiu Jitsu, a combat system anyone can use to awaken their power and apply it to their everyday lives. An indispensable tool for any fighter or seeker, Comfort in Darkness teaches how to balance and align the mind, body, and spirit.

Ce parcours c'est avant tout une belle histoire d'amour. Une histoire à deux qui malheureusement se termine mais accroît le désir inconditionnel de devenir père, le combat d'un homme pour connaître la paternité, y compris seul. À travers ce témoignage, Mathieu Ceschin se livre sans filtre sur ce combat, celui d'une vie, pour toucher à la paternité.

Meine Mutter war Alkoholikerin. Meine Kindheit? Keine einfache! Vor Jahren schwör ich mir, den Kontakt zu meiner Mutter abzubrechen. Als sie jedoch schwer erkrankte und Hilfe brauchte, reichte ich ihr meine Hand. Nichtwissend, dass die härtesten Tage, Wochen und Monate meines Lebens sein sollten.