As a foster kid in a cruel home, he knows his dream of one day playing in the NFL is a long shot.Then Harrison is brought into a new home with kind, loving parents—his new dad is even a football coach. Harrison's big build and his incredible determination quickly make him a star running back on the junior high school team.On the field, he's practically unstoppable. But Harrison's good luck can't last forever. When a routine sports injury leads to a devastating diagnosis, it will take every ounce of Harrison's determination not to give up for good.

    anytime.

    No one knew that the stage itself would steal her dream-and almost her life-during a rehearsal for the next big show.Just days before her opening night performance in The Wizard of Oz, sixteen-year- old Tasha took one step backward and fell sixteen feet through a trap door. On that day, Nov. 11, 1997, she landed on the concrete floor of the historic Sheldon Theater, breaking her neck, crushing her spinal cord, and fracturing her skull. She would never walk again.For the next three days, Tasha prepared for a surgery that would at best leave her a C-5 quadriplegic. Post-op complications turned Tasha's struggle and ultimate triumph into an unbelievable journey. From loss and grief to self-discovery and achievement, Tasha's faith, resilience, and honesty have allowed her to leave the old Tasha behind while she confronts the new Tasha's life from a state of the art wheelchair.Discover Tasha's remarkable spirit in My Last Step Backward, a poignant memoir that seeks to inspire you to welcome adversity and face your own trap door of opportunity.

    . . my mom, my dad, my sister, cookies, TV shows I'll never get to see the end of, walking outside when it's really nice, the smell of fall, the starry sky on a full moon, my grandparents, my grandpa's lasagna, kissing Victor, Victor's eyes, Victor's voice, Victor's smell, Victor's hands . . . Victor. A teenage girl heads towards the hospital waiting room where the doctors are going to tell her how much time she's got to live. As she walks, she thinks about her journey up to this point . . . the terrible decor in the hospital, wearing a headscarf, the horrible treatments, but also being with her friends, family, and her new boyfriend Victor. This is a story about cancer with a happy ending. It's about life, love, and especially, hope.

    That’s why Claire Wineland’s memoir, Every Breath I Take, Surviving and Thriving With Cystic Fibrosis, is so important. With her co-author, Chynna Bracha Levin, Claire describes with precision, honesty, and a remarkable sense of humor just what it’s like to live with an illness that is so often fatal. The book is a must read for anyone who feels compassion for a child, a relative, or friend going through an intense or even life-threatening illness. Claire explains exactly what it’s like to live as normal a life as possible while taking care of a condition that requires constant treatment and frequent hospitalization. Yet there’s nothing grim about Claire’s journey as she describes it. Claire finds the sunny side of life and the spirituality of her experiences in ways that captivate and amaze the reader. It’s impossible to come away from the book without a renewed sense of compassion and sensitivity toward anyone suffering from a serious illness. The book is required reading for anyone—adult or child—who wants to understand how it truly is possible to survive and thrive, no matter what.

    Obviously, a mistake has been made. Sixteen-year-old girls don't die. But, when the diagnosis is confirmed, she dives headlong into anger. If she has to die, why should it be of cancer? In fact, anything would be preferable to cancer. Better for her to say when, where, and especially how.Determined to meet death on her own terms, Mia devises scheme after scheme to get the job done. A “fall” down the basement stairs, driving her car off a bridge, and even a dance with a train all end in her survival. And through it all, Mia keeps her family and friends at arms' length with her destructive and hurtful behavior. With each failed suicide attempt and burned relationship, she slowly realizes that it’s not the dying that she’s afraid of, but the life she’ll be leaving behind. Now, that life is in a shambles. As time begins to slip through her fingers and death is upon her, Mia fights to rebuild the bridges she has destroyed, but can she do it before the clock runs out?

    When her mother reveals this is untrue, she goes through an emotional spiral with depression. It's hard for her to believe her mother had lied to her all this time. A move to a new home and town causes Amber to be consumed by her "darkness" and reverts to cutting to free herself from her pain.When Casey, her new friend enters her life, she introduces Amber to parties, drugs, and Amber's new boyfriend Landon. The secret of cutting begins to take affect on Amber as she tries to hide it from her friends and family. In the mist of everything, Amber has the desire to find out who her biological father is.Follow Amber through her trials of depression and cutting, along with the discovery of love.

    Kraus was taught English by James Joyce, escaped Nazi dominated Europe, and was JFK’s secret back specialist. A legendary rock climber known for hair-raising ascents on two continents, Kraus lived a life filled with tragedy and triumph, intense passion, verve, and a whole lot of guts, glory, and wit.One of the great unsung medical pioneers of the twentieth century, Kraus made headline news throughout the second half of the 1950s, was a guest of honor at Eisenhower’s White House, and was the subject of cover stories in major magazines throughout America, including Sports Illustrated. His pioneering work in muscles and fitness uncovered a shocking truth about a lack of fitness in American children, and his work curing back pain brought him into the Kennedy White House and inner circle of Camelot. Here now is the life of Hans Kraus, including the behind-the-scenes story of Kennedy’s crippling back problems, based on new documentation, including White House medical records and interviews with two Kennedy White House doctors.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Healing from the disease left Michele scared and vulnerable. As Michele grew into a young woman she decided to reclaim her life and discover who she really is becoming a talk show host and a post-trauma coach.

    Doing it alone is overwhelming—especially when that loved one is a child. But ever since Ken Brighton’s partner left him, Ken has spent his days at the hospital with his daughter, Hanna, hoping for a miracle. Maybe the mysterious care packages that appear for Hanna don’t qualify, but they bring a spark of hope into his and Hanna’s tired life—and so does Ken’s neighbor, former singer Patrick Flaherty. For two years Patrick hasn’t been able to focus on anything but the life he should have had. An injury robbed him of his voice, and the idea of introducing himself to new people intimidates him. But over the past months, he’s watched as his neighbor nursed his sick child, and once he meets Ken, Patrick starts to crave a life with him—a life he isn't sure he can have. Ken doesn’t realize he’s fallen in love until the doctors send Hanna home, saying there’s nothing more they can do: Hanna will either recover or succumb. Ken’s heart is set on a new beginning—with both Patrick and Hanna. But Patrick's silence leaves Ken wondering what Patrick wants.

    Lydia Bontrager's youngest sister is frighteningly ill, and as a good Amish daughter, it falls to Lydia to care for her siblings and keep the household running, in addition to working as a teacher's assistant and helping part time at her grandmother's bakery. Succumbing to stress, Lydia gives in to one wild night and returns home drunk. The secret of that mistake leaves Lydia feeling even more restless and confused, especially when Joshua, the only boy she's ever loved, becomes increasingly distant. When a non-Amish boy moves in nearby, Lydia finds someone who understands her, but the community is convinced Lydia is becoming too reckless. With the pressures at home and her sister's worsening condition, a splintering relationship with Joshua, and her own growing questions over what is right, Lydia could lose everything that she's ever held close.

    But how can she face Nathan Teague after seven years of lies? To ease into it, she enrolls her boy in the Cowboy Camp run by the Teague family on their Texas Hill Country ranch. Little Evan is bursting with excitement over horses, ropin' and hanging around real cowboys! Oh, my!Nathan is in shock when Grace comes back to town. Then when he discovers he's the father of her cute little boy—a miniature Nathan—he's not sure if he should be angry, grateful or both. He decides to go with angry. For a while, at least…until he gets the sense that Grace is still hiding something. What's the secret—and how can he ever trust the woman who stole his son from him?

    This gut-wrenching adventure is an exposé of how a major new hope for Alzheimer’s disease may be lost forever. A weekend experiment with a bizarre chemical out of an old lab freezer by the author as a graduate student leads to the discovery that methanesulfonyl fluoride (MSF) could revolutionize Alzheimer’s treatment. The author struggles alone to build a primitive lab and bring MSF, a simple and inexpensive drug, to the Alzheimer’s community. This forty-year odyssey of overcoming some self-inflicted setbacks, bumbling university administrators, and incompetent patent attorneys, eventually takes the author to Argentina and Mexico to find a way to prove that MSF can relieve the suffering of Alzheimer’s patients. This story, sprinkled with ambition, torment, and humor, will give readers a unique insight into how scientists work, the desperation of Alzheimer’s patients, and the strength of the human spirit. It also contrasts the warmth of human kindness and the support of colleagues with the cruel reality of how the survival of an innovative next generation treatment can be threatened simply because it was born out of the wedlock of Big Money and Big Pharma.Dr. Donald E. Moss received his Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at Colorado State University in 1966. After two years in the U.S. Army as a field artillery officer, including a year in Korea, he returned to Colorado State University and received his Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology in 1973. He completed a two-year Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego in 1975. He left San Diego to take a faculty position at the University of Texas at El Paso. He retired his faculty position to devote full time to the development of MSF. Dr. Moss has published over 100 articles, chapters and abstracts on various topics related to brain research, most of them focused on the development of MSF for Alzheimer's dementia. His work has appeared in highly respected medical journals including Brain Research, Nature, Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Neurobiology of Aging. He has also served on the Editorial Board of Neurobiology of Aging. The Governor of Texas, W.P. Clements, appointed Dr. Moss to two terms on the Texas Council on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders. He has also won numerous awards including the University of Texas at El Paso Award for Excellence in Research (1991) and the University of Texas at El Paso Award for Excellence in Teaching (1996), making him one of the few faculty members to win university awards for both teaching and research. Dr. Moss is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on acetylcholinesterse inhibitors and their use in the facilitation of memory, especially in aging and Alzheimer's disease. He has spoken on Alzheimer's disease and its treatment at many national and international conferences.

    But the ensuing romance proves short-lived as Jimmy dies of an AIDS-related illness. The grieving Seamus is obliged to keep a promise to Jimmy: “Take me back the way I came.”    And so Seamus sets out by bicycle on a picaresque journey with the ashes, hoping to bring them back to Buffalo. He meets truck drivers, waitresses, college kids, farmers, ranchers, Marines, and other travelers—each one giving him a new perspective on his own life and on Jimmy’s death. When he meets and becomes involved with a young Native American man whose mother has recently died, Seamus’s grief and his story become universal and redemptive.

    But her greatest battle is yet to come.The Carolina wren who has sung outside her window during the long weeks of chemotherapy reveals himself as Songcatcher. He knows Lee Ann’s real name is Leandra, and he transports her and her flute to a magical world that is dying because of a growing world-wide “canker.”Leandra is restored to health and her flute transformed by what magic is left in the world. But as she searches for the source of the canker, the malignant forces take their toll, not only on the land, but on Leandra’s physical and mental well-being.With the help of Songcatcher, other bird friends, and a very human prince, Leandra must find a way to heal the land she has learned to love before it is too late.

    Her body is turning against her, the world she knows falling apart. It seems nobody can help. The doctor’s confused, her parents argue constantly and her boyfriend, Dan looks on bewildered. Even outspoken Ali, her closest friend, seems powerless against the force of events.Buffeted by ignorance and conflicting advice from the very people who should be helping her, Sarah trawls through her unravelling life, searching for the moment where it all went wrong.But can she put the pieces of her world back together again, before it’s too late?

    In 1985, he is well into an unexamined existence with a devil-may-care lifestyle. Suddenly, Ron is blindsided by being diagnosed as H.I.V.-positive and given 30 days to live. Yet he will not, and does not, accept a death sentence.His crash course of research reveals a lack of approved treatments and medications in the U.S., so Ron crosses the border into Mexico. There, he learns about alternative treatments and begins smuggling them into the U.S., challenging the medical and scientific community including his concerned physician, Dr. Eve Saks.An outsider to the gay community, Ron finds an unlikely ally in fellow AIDS patient Rayon, a transsexual who shares Rons lust for life. Rayon also shares Rons entrepreneurial spirit: seeking to avoid government sanctions against selling non-approved medicines and supplements, they establish a buyers club, where H.I.V.-positive people pay monthly dues for access to the newly acquired supplies. Deep in the heart of Texas, Rons pioneering underground collective beats loud and strong. With a growing community of friends and clients, Ron fights for dignity, education, and acceptance. In the years following his diagnosis, the embattled Lone Star loner lives life to the fullest like never before.