This stirring memoir is a testament to love, resilience in the face of life’s challenges, and the power of faith that fuels this compelling and compassionate family. The first half of the book largely covers the trauma and perpetual anxiety of Nick’s uncertain first year of life after heart transplantation, painfully penned through the eyes of his watchful mother. Capturing that amount of grief and worry in prose is daunting, but May is fearless in her […]
The emotionally charged yet sensible treatise, Just Buy Her a Dress and She’ll Be Fine by Amanda Dodson Gremillion, is the moving story of postpartum depression and OCD as it played out in the author’s own life, and how that became a medium for guiding others.
Gremillion’s mental distress seemed to begin when she had her first child. She and her husband Jay had met in their early teens, courted for ten years, and married – happily, at first. Both wanted a child and when their daughter Aubrie Lynn was born, she was welcomed.
Soon afterwards, the problems set in. […]
Having recovered from a battle with “the black dog,” as depression is sometimes known, author Robert Nicholls shares the discoveries gained in that difficult process in Surviving the Darkness: Lessons Learned from a Battle with Depression and Anxiety.
Nicholls was a successful business owner, a specialist in business law, and former prosecutor, who had made significant headway in life as a husband, father, and professional. In pursuing his ambitions, he began to neglect all aspects of life except his work – he took less time for recreation, became chronically tired, gained weight, became fearful about social connections, and began […]
For this active, healthy, happy and high-functioning author, the shock and impact of a breast cancer diagnosis is depicted with intense authenticity, but there is also an impressive matter-of-factness about the prose that doesn’t lean heavily on emotional musing. Beautiful moments of reflection are supported by displays of indomitable strength, which make it an essential read for anyone whose life has been touched by cancer.
Not only is this a viscerally descriptive narrative of a daunting […]
The complex and painful decisions surrounding breast cancer are explored in intimate detail in Resurrection Lily: The BRCA Gene, Hereditary Cancer & Lifesaving Whispers from the Grandmother I Never Knew, a raw and impactful memoir by Amy Byer Shainman.
Cancer can often seem like a constant threat, but there are some people at dramatically increased risks, especially women with a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA 2 gene. After discovering that she possesses a gene mutation that greatly increases her changes of developing breast cancer, Shainman comes to terms with this looming threat and embarks on an inspiring journey […]
Recalling the final months leading up to her husband’s death, author Martha Calihan explores the spiritual meaning of death – its sorrows and blessings – in the moving A Death Lived.
The author’s husband Charles, who had survived cancer and a major heart attack, was rushed to the ER one fateful morning with pain in his right foot. Calihan, a physician, knew his condition could lead to an amputation, but after many complications, Charles returned home, seemingly recovered. The couple, who had known each other for most of their lives and been married more than thirty years, went back […]
Considering that there are hundreds of millions of people who take pharmaceutical medications (legally and doctor prescribed) every year, yet still suffer from overdoses, complications, and personal injury due to negative interactions from multiple prescriptions, the system is quite clearly broken. When it comes to education and common-sense understanding of the medication we put in our bodies, the companies generating these drugs provide the bare minimum. This guide from Stukanov is based in simple facts and […]
A cancer diagnosis is one of the most dreaded pieces of news to receive from a doctor, and with more than 1 million new cancer cases each year, this disease feels like an unavoidable part of modern life. In 90 Days to Live: Beating Cancer When Modern Medicine Offers No Hope, authors Paige and Rodney Stamps pull back the curtain on their own lives and Rodney’s diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Unlike so many other memoirs or books about patient journeys through endless rounds of treatment, remission, heartbreaks and breakthroughs, this is a story of hope via alternate methods, and […]