Afflicted with an incurable neuromuscular disease, he has never walked, never ridden a bicycle, never driven a car. He has never married, never had children, never knelt to pray. But the story of his life is not about the things he has never done or will never do. The story of his life is about reaching our possibilities in spite of our disabilities. It is about living rich, meaningful lives despite trials and tragedies. More important, it is about the undeniable influence and power of a mother's love—a mother who was told to prepare for her son's death, and who, instead, raised him to become a self-sufficient adult. • Steve Mikita is now 53 years old. He has outlived both of his parents. • Approximately 12.6 million (or 18%) of U.S. children under the age of 18 have a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition that requires ongoing medical supervision. • For parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children with disabilities or unique challenges, this book is an uplifting message of hope.

    There's more to learning to ride western than just horses, and it has to do with seeing eye bulls, a cabin so small she constantly crashes into her grand piano shipped from home, four elusive children she can't see to feed or care for, and a husband who expects perfection, prays on horseback, makes adobe bricks to build her a proper house, drives a jalopy truck with his seven-year-old son on his lap--and won't ever admit to being blind.

    The heartbreaking story of this mysterious sonata—Schubert’s last, and his most elusive and haunting—is the soundtrack of Andrea's story.Sonata is a breathtaking exploration of a “Janus-head miracle”—Andrea's extraordinary talent and even more extraordinary illness. With no cure for her R.A. possible, Andrea must learn to live with this disease while not letting it define her, even though it leaves its mark on everything around her—family, relationships, even the clothes she wears. And in this riveting account, she never loses her wit, humor, or the raw artistry of a true performer.As the goshawk becomes a source of both devotion and frustration for Helen Macdonald in H is for Hawk, so the piano comes to represent both struggle and salvation for Andrea in her extraordinary debut.

     Recovering from a road accident that has left her half-blind and in a wheelchair, Belle Hammer is alone in her secluded house set in a sprawling ten-acre plot, deep in the forests beyond Perth, Australia. Her husband having left on a work trip, and living miles away from urban centres, Belle has only a few neighbours. And one of them, the creepy retired lecturer Arthur Howell, she doesn’t trust one bit . Was it Howell who was seen in the grounds of her house? Did he make the noise she hears in the inaccessible first floor of her home? Unable to travel, Belle is cut off from the world. Her only hope is the home care assistant her husband arranged for her. But all is not as it seems. Left to the mercy of a woman she increasingly fears, Belle’s world starts to close in on her. It will take all of her wits and courage to understand why she is being victimised and survive the ensuing ordeal. If she does. Vengeance Blind is the latest thriller by Australian author Anna Willet. Her other books, in order of publication, are: 1. BACKWOODS RIPPER 2. RETRIBUTION RIDGE 3. UNWELCOME GUESTS 4. FORGOTTEN CRIMES 5. CRUELTY’S DAUGHTER 6. SMALL TOWN NIGHTMARE

    Won best devotional book in the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's 2017 Christian Book Awards.Do you ever wonder why God created you? The Bible says it plainly: God created you to showcase His glory--to enjoy it, display it, and demonstrate it every day to all those you encounter. An inspirational figure to millions of people in the more than forty years of her ministry, Joni Eareckson Tada has shared honestly about the struggles of living as a quadriplegic and dealing with chronic pain on a daily basis. Through this devotional, Joni will help you discover how to put God’s glory on display--how to say no to complaining and say yes to following God as you walk the most difficult paths. Along the way, you will find great comfort and encouragement by focusing on the One who longs to lead and guide you every step of the way, every day. Your life is not too ordinary, your world is not too small, and your work is not too insignificant. All of it is a stage set for you to glorify God.

    She doesn't make choices. She doesn't make friends. Jazmine Crawford only wants one thing: to be invisible. For Jazmine, it's a lot easier to take out her hearing aid and drift along pretending that nothing's wrong than it is to admit that she's heartbroken. She starts to come out of her shell when she's forced to be in the school play and even makes friends with bouncy Gabby and chocolate-loving Liam. But can she stand up to the school bully, and is she strong enough to face the truth about what really happened to her dad?

    And a friend the boy finds in a strange white sea turtle.

    Williams should not be alive. She does not want to be. Tell that to those callous military doctors though. Now Williams has AI inside her brain, and PTSD is making her life hell. Filled with rage, and consumed by guilt, the bottle is her only escape. But a broken marine unable to return to active duty is not something her commanding officer will tolerate for long. A reluctant Williams is sent to Mars for compulsory R&R, and thrown into the hands of a sadistic therapist. She is surprised to discover that when she hits rock bottom, love is waiting for her there. Still, life on the front-line as a leading officer of the Interstellar Commando Unit is anything but safe. And Williams will soon be facing her toughest and most dangerous challenge, which could very well land her right back where she started. Dead.

    "Thank you for loving me," she said.I was the one who should be thanking her for loving me. I couldn't think about that right now. There was too much blood. I had to help her. "Tell me how to fix this."She coughed and cleared her throat. "Your love has fulfilled me.""No, please," I said, "don't talk like that. You're in shock. That's all. We'll get help soon.""Chris," Sarah said. "You have to let me go. I love..."She sank into my arms as her life left her body."No! Please, God, no."When Chris McCowan's fiancée, 24-year-old Sarah Eason, is killed during a bizarre robbery near Austin, Texas, an unlikely trio teams up to find those responsible for her death. The trio, Chris, a 31-year-old computer science professor, Percy "Tex" Thompson, a 40-year-old wheelchair bound ex-con student of Chris', and 65-year-old head librarian Liz Siedo, pool their talents to find the criminals after local law enforcement agencies have given up.Chris wants an eye for an eye even if it means giving up God and the church where he and Sarah were to be married. He sets out to learn the tricks of the trade from his ex-con student, all while continuing to teach and coming to terms with his grief. Angela, who claims to be an FBI agent, joins the Vengeance Squad to help the three find the killers.

    The Train in the Night is an account of one man's struggle to recover from the loss of his greatest passion in life - and to go one step further than that: to restore his ability not only to hear but to think about and feel music.Of all our relationships with art, the one we enjoy with music is the most complex, the most mysterious and, for reasons that cannot be explained by science alone, the most emotionally charged. Nothing about that relationship is simple. And yet it is perhaps through music that we make the most intimate contact with our sense of who we really are, at our most naked, unsophisticated, honest, and simplified. Through psalms, symphonies, love songs, ballads, boogie...Where to start, though, for the newly deaf? Well, you can start, suggested a famous neurologist, by trying to remember every beautiful piece of music you've ever heard and then by thinking about that music over and over again until it begins to assume a new kind of form in your brain. You never know what might happen after that. And so that's what the author did. He went back to the origins of his passion - the series of big bangs which kicked off his musical universe - and then worked his way forwards through the back catalogue.The Train in the Night is a memoir not quite like any other. It is about growing up, obviously. But it is also about becoming young again and trying to see the world for what it is, whether through the eyes of a teenage punk or those of a middle-aged music critic and father of two. It is about taste and love and suffering and delusion. It is about longing to be Keith Richards. It is funny, heartbreaking and, above all, true. It is a hymn to music.

    Nothing About Us Without Us is the first book in the literature on disability to provide a theoretical overview of disability oppression that shows its similarities to, and differences from, racism, sexism, and colonialism. Charlton's analysis is illuminated by interviews he conducted over a ten-year period with disability rights activists throughout the Third World, Europe, and the United States. Charlton finds an antidote for dependency and powerlessness in the resistance to disability oppression that is emerging worldwide. His interviews contain striking stories of self-reliance and empowerment evoking the new consciousness of disability rights activists. As a latecomer among the world's liberation movements, the disability rights movement will gain visibility and momentum from Charlton's elucidation of its history and its political philosophy of self-determination, which is captured in the title of his book. Nothing About Us Without Us expresses the conviction of people with disabilities that they know what is best for them. Charlton's combination of personal involvement and theoretical awareness assures greater understanding of the disability rights movement.

    You need a new road map, and fast...When Jennifer Groneberg and her husband learned they'd be having twin boys, their main concern was whether they'd need an addition on their house. Then, five days after Avery and Bennett were born, Avery was diagnosed with Down syndrome.Here, Jennifer shares the story of what followed. She dealt with doctors-some who helped, and some who were disrespectful or even dangerous. She saw some relationships in her life grow stronger, while severing ties with people who proved unsupportive. And she continues to struggle to find balance in the hardships and joys of raising a child with special needs. This book is a resource, a companion for parents, and above all, a story of the love between a mother and her son-as she learns that Avery is exactly the child she never knew she wanted.

    They are the powerhouses of our cells, essential for the production and management of energy at cell level. Dr Sarah Myhill, together with Dr John McLaren Howard of Acumen Laboratories and Dr Norman Booth of Mansfield College Oxford, has spent many years studying the relationship between their malfunction and the commonest problem seen by GPs in the UK – fatigue. Their research findings have been published in three scientific papers in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, in 2009, 2012 and 2013. These studies showed that poor functioning of the mitochondria is the central problem in CFS. Patients with the worst mitochondrial function had the worst fatigue and vice versa. This is solid scientific evidence that CFS is a problem with mitochondria and has allowed the objective measurement of fatigue for the first time. With the publication of the third study, which showed that mitochondrial function tests and symptoms improved in patients who took measures to address their mitochondrial problems, Dr Myhill was ready to write this book. Here she explains the importance of healthy mitochondria, how we can measure their functioning and what we can do to keep them healthy, or restore them to health if problems arise. CFS is all in our cells, not in our minds!

    However, in this case, it was a costly and deadly consequence. At the age of sixteen, Landon became the Alpha of Shadow Pack after a battle killed his father, destroyed his pack, and cost him his eyesight. Being blind proves to be difficult for someone who should exude authority and take care of his territory. As a result, Landon has grown frustrated, cold and angry. Escaping her abusive pack, Lana stumbles accidentally into Shadow Pack. She has heard everything about this pack. She knows about its Alpha. She knows that he’s cruel and ruthless. And she knows, for sure, that she’ll die upon stepping on the pack’s territory. However, there is one thing she is still about to discover… Lana and Landon are mates. Yet meeting each other is just the start of their story since a pack is eyeing Lana for vengeance. Now, both of them have to make a sacrifice for the sake of their pack’s safety. Will Landon and Lana be willing to sacrifice even if it costs themselves? And will they be able to make the right decision now? Fantasy, mystery, and tragedy? Charlotte Michelle’s Blind Alpha got that covered. Grab this must-read, eye-opening story for all avid paranormal werewolf readers!

    He'd won the Stand-Up of the Year Award, his HBO special was a huge hit, and his sitcom had been picked up. And then it all came crashing down. Diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, he was told he would have to undergo chemotherapy immediately. The sitcom was dumped and the fire of his white-hot career started to go out. But Schimmel never lost his sense of humor, his knife-like edge, and most of all, his passion to entertain. Indeed, it was his basic need to laugh-even if the only people around him were suffering from cancer and the room he was playing was the Mayo Clinic infusion center-that carried him through his ordeal. From his colorful banter with nurses and other patients during chemo, to his hilarious conversation with a wig salesman, going for the laugh was Robert Schimmel's survival mechanism. Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and profound, Cancer on Five Dollars a Day is an honest account of how one man's face-off with a deadly disease helped him better understand himself.