Neil Spector, one of the nation's top oncologists, led a charmed life. He was educated at prestigious universities, trained at top medical centers, and had married the woman of his dreams. It seemed too perfect. And it was.In 1994, it all came crashing down. He and his wife lost two unborn children. And a mysterious illness brought him to the brink of death. In his compelling memoir, Gone in a Heartbeat, Dr. Spector describes in great detail how he was misdiagnosed and, despite being a medical insider, was often discounted by his fellow physicians.As he recounts his own unorthodox approach to medicine and physician/patient relationships, Dr. Spector encourages readers to never surrender their power to a third party. He tells of courageous patients who served as role models, he conceded that doctors do a disservice to patients when "we treat them like statistics," and he advocates for educated patients who can make informed decisions collaboratively and not simply follow instructions. In Dr. Spector's words: "To recognize that we are in control of our own bodies and destinies can be a powerful step toward true healing."Readers of Gone in a Heartbeat will never view the medical profession the same again.

    At the age of 29, Diana Hill fell under a London train. In 7 seconds the tall, glamorous businesswoman went from busy woman of the world with everything to live for to double-leg amputee, her life in ruins. Then it got worse. A few days after her accident, as she lay in hospital, traumatised and heavily sedated, she learnt via a newspaper article that the railway’s Transport Police were to interview “The Fall Girl”, as the Press had labelled her, with a view to prosecution. She had boarded a moving train, they said, and trespassed onto their railway line. Her fight for justice took 5 years and was, she declares with no hesitation, a more harrowing experience than having both of her legs ‘stolen’ from her. As any young, single woman would be, Diana was shocked to the core by the sudden, catastrophic change in her body image. What man would ever love her now? The issues surrounding sexuality and disability are explored here with stark honesty as she recalls her complicated love life, the High Court dramas, and the rawness of her pain amidst a turmoil of emotion, all told with tremendous humour, charm and heart. For Diana loves to tell stories. Especially true ones. A brutally honest, heartwarming memoir that shocks and delights in equal measure – when you're not crying for her you're laughing with her: "A computer is a thing that can be disabled, not a person." Diana Morgan-Hill

     A powerful true story revealing a remarkable relationship between a dying son - and a mother that refuses to let him go. At the age of 10, Deryn was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Then 18 months later he developed another rare form of cancer called Langerhan’s cell sarcoma. Only five other people in the world have it. He is the youngest of them all and the only person in the world known to be fighting it alongside another cancer, making him one in seven billion. Told there was no hope of survival, after four years of intensive treatment, exhausted by his fight and with just days left to live, Deryn planned his own funeral. But, Deryn’s desperate mother, Callie would not let him give in. Battling medical errors, impossible odds and years of hardship as the cancer consumed his body and their world, they looked for more answers. After making some startling discoveries and taking massive chances - something began to change… Would their lives as a family ever be the same again?

    Wow. Too much energy. Wow. Too much anticipation. WOW. It’s the new memoir from the biggest star in gaming: Dr Disrespect.Dr Disrespect is a 6-foot-8 freak of nature with a 37-inch vertical, the two-time, back-to-back 1993-94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion, and in his factual opinion, the most dominant international gaming superstar in the history of the world. It was just a matter of time before Western civilization came begging Doc to save literature by writing a memoir that reads like a vicious, muscular lion clawing his way through the rocks, roaring in anger and dominance. Here you will find his deepest, most intimate secrets. The untold history of his mysterious, legendary origins and his rise to unparalleled dominance. And most of all, you will find out what, exactly, Doc’s a doctor of. Are you ready for a book with the rhythm of a sleazy ’70s muscleman and the ruthlessness of a ’90s serial killer? A journey that stares down the long, dark alley of your fears and never looks back? Does your warrior’s heart yearn to reach the tippity top of the mountain just to realize you’re still only halfway up? If so, firm handshakes, Champion: Welcome to the salvation of literature.

    But between her drug addict patients, sleepless nights on call, and battling wits with the sadistic yet charming Sexy Surgeon, Jane can’t imagine an afterlife much worse than her first month of medical internship at County Hospital.And then there’s the devil herself: Jane’s senior resident Dr. Alyssa Morgan. When Alyssa becomes absolutely hell-bent on making her new interns pay tenfold for the deadly sin of incompetence, Jane starts to worry that she may not make it through the year with her soul or her sanity still intact.

    But as it is often said nothing ever really happened unless it is written down. There are so many stories to tell of the agonies and triumphs of both doctors and patients, who have peopled this venerable institution through the ages. I wrote the stories because I firmly believe that healing is a mutual process; that the healer is very often himself healed as he goes about caring for the ailing person. So the stories bite both ways.”

    When 48 year-old single mother, massage therapist and returning student Ellie meets a young woman with kidney disease, she decides to make it her mission to save the girl. Unfortunately, outdated rules made it difficult for altruistic donors, and besides, the woman doesn’t want a savior. Does this stop Ellie from her quest to “be the change” one seeks in the world? Not a chance. Told with humor and self-reflection, this inspirational memoir of courage and compassion is interwoven with anecdotal stories that help the reader identify what kind of person commits the selfless act of organ donation. Ellie,a self-described devout agnostic, is kind but often irreverent. She is generous, but she is no saint. Ultimately, becoming a kidney donor has given her a renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment. Lost in Transplantation asserts that we are all capable of altering a human being's life for the better, including our own.

    Tammet's ability to think abstractly, deviate from routine, and empathize, interact and communicate with others is impaired, yet he's capable of incredible feats of memorization and mental calculation. Besides being able to effortlessly multiply and divide huge sums in his head with the speed and accuracy of a computer, Tammet, the subject of the 2005 documentary Brainman, learned Icelandic in a single week and recited the number pi up to the 22,514th digit, breaking the European record. He also experiences synesthesia, an unusual neurological syndrome that enables him to experience numbers and words as "shapes, colors, textures and motions." Tammet traces his life from a frustrating, withdrawn childhood and adolescence to his adult achievements, which include teaching in Lithuania, achieving financial independence with an educational Web site and sustaining a long-term romantic relationship. As one of only about 50 people living today with synesthesia and autism, Tammet's condition is intriguing to researchers; his ability to express himself clearly and with a surprisingly engaging tone (given his symptoms) makes for an account that will intrigue others as well.

    Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate, for his struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and in some cases in the face of strenuous disagreement.   In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions—infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material—and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced using talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner’s hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and other devastating diseases of the brain?

     Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, we still don't know exactly how or why these drugs work--or don't work--on what ails our brains. Blue Dreams offers the explosive story of the discovery, invention, people, and science behind our licensed narcotics, as told by a riveting writer and psychologist who shares her own intimate experience with the highs and lows of psychiatry's drugs. Lauren Slater's account ranges from the earliest, Thorazine and lithium, up through Prozac and other antidepressants, as well as Ecstasy, "magic mushrooms," the most cutting-edge memory drugs, and even neural implants. Along the way, she narrates the history of psychiatry itself, illuminating the imprint its colorful little capsules have left on millions of brains worldwide, and demonstrating how these wonder drugs may heal us or hurt us.

    And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one.” - John HarricharanThey belong to each other. Nancy and Nicole—mother and daughter. They’re two halves of a whole, two facets of the same breath—until the day Nicole exhales. . . and never inhales again. After the death of her daughter, and quickly losing her own battle with grief, Nancy moves from the house she can no longer bear to live in. While packing, she finds a box in the attic. Inside she uncovers treasures she didn’t know existed and evidence that her and her daughter’s lives had been more divinely entwined than she could’ve imagined.The Truth About Butterflies is a true story of grief, hope, and transformation, and a single enduring truth: Life cannot be restrained by death._______Nancy Stephan was named Georgia Author of the Year at the 48th annual GAYA Banquet. Stephan’s book, “The Truth About Butterflies” won in the “Memoir” category. Over 100 authors were nominated in 12 categories. The Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) are the oldest literary awards in the Southeast.

    But most of us know very little about how the disease works, why we treat it the way we do, and the personalities whose dedication got us where we are today. For fifty years, Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr. has been one of those key players: he has held just about every major position in the field, and he developed the first successful chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a breakthrough the American Society of Clinical Oncologists has called the top research advance in half a century of chemotherapy. As one of oncology’s leading figures, DeVita knows what cancer looks like from the lab bench and the bedside. The Death of Cancer is his illuminating and deeply personal look at the science and the history of one of the world’s most formidable diseases. In DeVita’s hands, even the most complex medical concepts are comprehensible.Cowritten with DeVita’s daughter, the science writer Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, The Death of Cancer is also a personal tale about the false starts and major breakthroughs, the strong-willed oncologists who clashed with conservative administrators (and one another), and the courageous patients whose willingness to test cutting-edge research helped those oncologists find potential treatments. An emotionally compelling and informative read, The Death of Cancer is also a call to arms. DeVita believes that we’re well on our way to curing cancer but that there are things we need to change in order to get there. Mortality rates are declining, but America’s cancer patients are still being shortchanged—by timid doctors, by misguided national agendas, by compromised bureaucracies, and by a lack of access to information about the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s cancer centers.With historical depth and authenticity, DeVita reveals the true story of the fight against cancer. The Death of Cancer is an ambitious, vital book about a life-and-death subject that touches us all.

    I am a soldier. I am a mother. I am a wife. In 2009, Army second lieutenant Jessica Scott deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. She thought deploying was the hardest thing she'd ever do. She was wrong. This is the story of a mother coming home from war and learning to be a mom again. This is the story of a lieutenant making the grade and becoming a company commander. This is the journey of a writer persevering through a hundred rejections. This is the story of a soldier learning to be a woman again. This is the story of a wife waiting for the end of a war. This is the journey as it happened, without commentary. This is her blog. There are many blogs from the Iraq war, but this one is hers.

    It’s brighter than you think. In Parkinson’s Disease for Dummies, you’ll discover how to keep a positive attitude and lead an active, productive life as this user-friendly, guide pilots you through the important steps toward taking charge of your condition. It helps you: Make sure you have an accurate diagnosis Assemble and work with your health care team Inform others about your condition Choose the most effective medications Establish a diet and exercise regimen Consider surgical options, alternative therapies, and clinical trials Maintain healthy personal and professional relationships Adjust your routine as your PD progresses This one-stop resource provides proven coping skills, first-hand advice, and practical tools, such as worksheets to assess care options, questions to ask doctors, and current listings of care providers.

    Overwhelmed as his condition tragically worsened, she had to believe that while Joel’s loss was permanent, so was their love.Left to raise their young daughter on her own, and to act as if she could resume life without her beloved husband by her side, Melissa found that she didn’t fit the typical idea of widowhood or meet the expectations of mourning. She didn’t look like a widow or act like a widow, but she felt like one. Melissa was widowish.Melissa’s personal journey through grief and beyond includes unlikely inspiration from an evangelical preacher, the calming presence of some Real Housewives, and the unexpected attention of a charismatic musician. A modern take on loss, Widowish illuminates the twists of fate that break our world, the determination that keeps us moving forward, and the surprises in life we never see coming.