Search:

Results 81 to 90 of 95 | « previous |

A funny kind of paradise / by Owens, Jo,1961-author.;
When her husband left her with a baby, a toddler and a fledgling business, Francesca managed--she wasn't always gentle or patient, but the business thrived and Chris and Angelina had food to eat. At nearly 70, she feels she's earned a peaceful retirement. But when a massive stroke leaves her voiceless, partially paralyzed and wholly reliant on the staff of an extended care facility, it seems her freedom is lost. However, Francesca is still clear-headed and sharp, and she knows one thing: she wants to live. She savours her view of a majestic chestnut tree through the hospital window, and speaks in her mind to her beloved friend Anna, dead for two years. The daily tasks and dramas of the rotating crew of care aides tether her to the world: Young Lily, eager to fall in love and regularly falling apart when things don't work out; Michiko, with her spiky hair and tattoos and wicked sense of humour; Molly, endlessly kind and skilled in her work; Blaire, cold and enigmatic. Amidst the indignities of bed baths and a feeding tube, Francesca is surprised to experience flashes of hilarity and joy, even the blossoming of a new friendship with a fellow patient. But as she reflects to Anna on her dutiful son and her troubled and absent daughter, regrets and painful realizations rise to the surface. For the first time, there is nowhere for Francesca to hide from her own choices, and she must reckon with her past before it's too late. A Funny Kind of Paradise is a warm and insightful novel about one woman's opportunity for reinvention--for unconditional love, acceptance and closure--in the unlikeliest of places.
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Mother and child; Cerebrovascular disease; Long-term care facilities; Older people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Good girls : a story and study of anorexia / by Freeman, Hadley,author.;
"In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: "I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????" From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a "functioning anorexic," grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted. Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. In a brilliant narrative that combines personal experience with deep reporting, Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia--the shame, fear, loneliness and rage--and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades. Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Freeman, Hadley; Anorexia nervosa;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

A spark of light : a novel / by Picoult, Jodi,1966-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The lives of ordinary people become intertwined when a gunman takes hostages at a women's clinic in the #1 New York Times bestselling author's latest. At Mississippi's sole remaining women's reproductive services clinic, a gunman bursts in and takes its patients and staff hostage. The stories that brought these individuals to the clinic vary, from a woman awaiting cancer screening results to a protestor hoping to catch the clinic in a scandal that could be used in a pro-life campaign. Then there is the police hostage negotiator, whose daughter is also trapped inside the facility, and the gunman himself, who has a vendetta to carry out. Meanwhile, across the state, a seventeen-year-old woman lands in the hospital after an attempt to self-terminate her pregnancy and is subsequently charged by the pro-life DA for the murder of her unborn child. They, too, are connected to the events unfolding in the clinic. As the book moves backward in time, each chapter set one hour earlier than the last, we learn how all these people and their stories are unwittingly connected--and that none of these characters' reasons for being where they are at this fateful place and time are exactly what it appears at first glance."--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Hostages; Hostage negotiations; Family planning services;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 4
unAPI

A spark of light [sound recording] : a novel / by Picoult, Jodi,1966-author,narrator.; Turpin, Bahni,narrator.; Random House Audio Publishing,publisher.; Books on Tape, Inc.,publisher.;
Read by Bahni Turpin, with a note read by the author."The lives of ordinary people become intertwined when a gunman takes hostages at a women's clinic in the #1 New York Times bestselling author's latest. At Mississippi's sole remaining women's reproductive services clinic, a gunman bursts in and takes its patients and staff hostage. The stories that brought these individuals to the clinic vary, from a woman awaiting cancer screening results to a protestor hoping to catch the clinic in a scandal that could be used in a pro-life campaign. Then there is the police hostage negotiator, whose daughter is also trapped inside the facility, and the gunman himself, who has a vendetta to carry out. Meanwhile, across the state, a seventeen-year-old woman lands in the hospital after an attempt to self-terminate her pregnancy and is subsequently charged by the pro-life DA for the murder of her unborn child. They, too, are connected to the events unfolding in the clinic. As the book moves backward in time, each chapter set one hour earlier than the last, we learn how all these people and their stories are unwittingly connected--and that none of these characters' reasons for being where they are at this fateful place and time are exactly what it appears at first glance."--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Psychological fiction.; Hostages; Hostage negotiations; Family planning services;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Rough magic : living with borderline personality disorder / by Newman, Miranda,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A harrowing but ultimately uplifting literary memoir about living with borderline personality disorder--the most stigmatized diagnosis in mental health. 'I didn't know whether to take you to a psychologist or an exorcist.' This is how Miranda Newman's mother described the experience of trying to find an explanation for her daughter's behaviour. It would be years before Miranda was able to find a diagnosis that explained the complicated way she moved through the world. She would have to advocate for herself in the mental health system while dealing with abuse, homelessness, survival sex, suicide attempts and hospitalizations. Through it all, Miranda has found strength in her diagnosis. Her recollections are visceral and confessional, but also self-aware, irreverent and funny. She tells readers how she has found strength and joy in what others might see as tragic, while bolstering her personal recollections with deeply researched observations on Canada's mental healthcare system, and the history of diagnostics and disorder, using research supported by her work at Yale University."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Newman, Miranda; Newman, Miranda.; Borderline personality disorder; Borderline personality disorder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Cured : the life-changing science of spontaneous healing / by Rediger, Jeffrey,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."When it comes to disease, who beats the odds - and why? When it comes to spontaneous healing, skepticism abounds. Doctors are taught that "miraculous" recoveries are flukes, and as a result they don't study those cases or take them into account when treating patients. Enter Dr. Jeff Rediger, who has spent over 15 years studying spontaneous healing, pioneering the use of scientific tools to investigate recoveries from incurable illnesses. Dr. Rediger's research has taken him from America's top hospitals to healing centers around the world-and along the way he's uncovered insights into why some people beat the odds. In Cured, Dr. Rediger digs down to the root causes of illness, showing how to create an environment that sets the stage for healing. He reveals the patterns behind healing and lays out the physical and mental principles associated with recovery: first, we need to physically heal our diet and our immune systems. Next, we need to mentally heal our stress response and our identities. Through rigorous research, Dr. Rediger shows that much of our physical reality is created in our minds. Our perception changes our experience, even to the point of changing our physical bodies-and thus the healing of our identity may be our greatest tool to recovery. Ultimately, miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point in time. Cured leads the way in explaining the science behind these miracles, and provides a first-of-its-kind guidebook to both healing and preventing disease"--
Subjects: Healing; Medicine, Psychosomatic.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Strangers to ourselves : unsettled minds and the stories that make us / by Aviv, Rachel,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."The highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are. Mental illnesses are often seen as chronic and intractable forces that take over our lives, that define us. But how much do the stories we tell about our illnesses--and the process of diagnosis--inform their course? In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv writes about how explanations for mental distress may shape our health, our sense of who we are, and the possibilities for who we can be in the world. Drawing on deep, original reporting and unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lived in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after a period of psychosis; a man seeking revenge against a prominent psychoanalytic hospital through a lawsuit that dramatizes the clash between two irreconcilable models of the mind; an affluent young woman whose lifelong psychiatric treatment eventually leads her to go off her meds in a desperate attempt to figure out who she would be without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's exploration is refracted through her own account of being institutionalized at the age of six and meeting Hava, a friend and fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel--until it no longer does. While the stories unfold in different eras and cultures, they converge in the psychic hinterlands, the outer edges of human experience. Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations and endeavor to recover a sense of agency, in search of new ways to understand a self in the world. Challenging conventional ideas of mental disease as something static, Aviv's accounts are testaments to the porousness and resilience of the mind"--
Subjects: Mental illness; Mentally ill;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The last doctor : lessons in living from the front lines of medical assistance in dying / by Marmoreo, Jean,author.;
"An urgently important exploration of the human stories behind Canada's evolving acceptance of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), from one of its first and most thoughtful practitioners. Dr. Jean Marmoreo spent her career keeping people alive. But when the Supreme Court of Canada gave the green light to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, she became one of a small group of doctors who chose to immediately train themselves in this new field. Over the course of a single year, Marmoreo learns about end-of-life practices in bustling Toronto hospitals, in hospices, and in the facilities of smaller communities. She found that the needed services were often minimal--or non-existent. The Last Doctor recounts Marmoreo's crash course in MAiD and introduces a range of very different and memorable patients, some aged, some suffering from degenerative conditions or with a terminal disease, some surrounded by supportive love, some quite alone, who ask her help to end their suffering with dignity and on their own terms. Dr. Marmoreo also shares her own emotional transformation as she climbs a steep learning curve and learns the intimate truths of the vast range of end-of-life situations. What she experiences with MAiD shakes her to her core, makes her think deeply about pain, loneliness, and joy, and brings her closer to life's most profound questions. At a time when end-of-life care and its quality are more in the public eye than ever before, The Last Doctor provides an accessibly personal, deeply humane, and authoritative guide through this difficult subject."--
Subjects: Personal narratives.; Marmoreo, Jean; Assisted suicide; Assisted suicide;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The story of a heart : two families, one heart, and the medical miracle that saved a child's life / by Clarke, Rachel(Physician),author.;
Includes bibliographical references."One summer day, nine-year-old Keira Ball was in a terrible car accident and suffered catastrophic brain injuries. As the rest of her body began to shut down, her heart continued to beat. In an act of extraordinary generosity, Keira's parents and siblings immediately agreed that she would have wanted to be an organ donor. Meanwhile nine-year-old Max Johnson had been in a hospital for nearly a year, valiantly fighting the virus that was causing his young heart to fail. When Max's parents received the call they had been hoping for, they knew it came at a terrible cost to another family--in what Clarke calls "the brutal arithmetic of transplant surgery." The act of Keira's heart resuming its rhythm inside Max's body was a medical miracle. But this was only part of the story. While waiting on the transplant list, Max had become the hopeful face of a campaign to change the UK's laws around organ donation. Following his successful surgery, Keira's mother saw the little boy beaming on the front page of the newspaper and knew it was the same boy whose parents had recently sent her an anonymous letter overflowing with gratitude for her daughter's heart. The two mothers began to exchange messages and eventually decided to meet"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Johnson, Max, 2008-; Ball, Keira, 2008-2017; Donation of organs, tissues, etc.; Donation of organs, tissues, etc.; Heart; Organ donors; Organ donors; Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc. in children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Red zone : from the offensive line to the front line of the pandemic / by Duvernay-Tardif, Laurent,1991-author.;
"On July 24, 2020 Laurent Duvernay-Tardif sent shockwaves through the sports world by becoming the first NFL player to opt out of the coming season. The only active player who is also a medical doctor, Laurent spent the months directly after winning the Super Bowl working in a health facility in Quebec on the front lines of the pandemic. As plans for the 2020 NFL season ramped up and daily cases continued to skyrocket, Laurent realized that playing and potentially spreading the virus was antithetical to everything he believed. For the first time in his remarkable career, he couldn't square his twin passions of football and medicine. So he temporarily stepped away from the game he loved, returning to his medical work and enrolling in Harvard to earn his master's in public health, hoping to maximize his celebrity status in order to effect change on a larger scale. But that was just the beginning of this fascinating story. As Laurent settled into his new reality, he quickly came up against a severe COVID outbreak in his hospital unit. Meanwhile, his team, the Kansas City Chiefs entered the playoffs as the #1 seed in the AFC and were favorites to repeat as champions amidst a season that saw countless games postponed due to league-wide outbreaks, including one in his own offensive line group in Kansas City. This fast-paced memoir will take you inside Laurent's life as he grappled with his role as both a medical professional and NFL football player, taking readers on a journey into Duvernay-Tardiff's remarkable personal story, where his insatiable curiosity and work ethic led him from his family's bakery in downtown Montreal to his dual role as both a medical school graduate and championship-winning right guard in the NFL. From the incredible highs of winning the Super Bowl to the incredible sorrow of losing a patient on his ward to Covid, from the high of Super Bowl win to an unexpected trade, RED ZONE is riveting account of Tardiff's incredible intelligence, determination, sacrifice, and conviction. It's also a captivating story of one of the most fascinating and accomplished people in professional sports."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Duvernay-Tardif, Laurent, 1991-; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; Football players; Physicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Results 81 to 90 of 95 | « previous |