Speaking out about Invisible Illness and Invisible Disability

Beyond Chaos: One Man's Journey Alongside His Chronically Ill Wife

by: Gregg Piburn

Amazon Price: $7.85 (as of 06/01/2012)

Piburn has written a series of painfully honest essays chronicling his journey of understanding and personal growth after his wife's diagnosis of fybromyalgia, a condition related to arthritis, thrust the role of caregiver upon him.

Piburn, a management communications consultant and former newspaper columnist, uses his own experience and expertise to write a very readable personal narrative of his 14-year journey alongside his wife. Quoting Benjamin Franklin,"Those things that hurt, instruct "Piburn offers insights into the complex relational and communications issues that may arise in this situation.

Also included are short exercises to help the reader get more from the book. A brief list of suggested readings is also provided. Piburn's intelligent and well-written book transcends the specifics of arthritis and will be of value to anyone who shares life with a chronically ill family member. Recommended for consumer health collections.ALisa McCormick, Jewish Hosp. Lib., Cincinnati Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. - Amazon

Beautiful Universal Design: A Visual Guide

by: Cynthia A. Leibrock, James Evan Terry

Amazon Price: $129.86 (as of 06/01/2012)

Beautiful Universal Design: A Visual Guide

The freedom to go beyond compliance . . . Following in the successful footsteps of the award-winning book, Beautiful Barrier-Free, universal design experts Cynthia A. Leibrock and James Evan Terry present a fresh generation of flexible design solutions in Beautiful Universal Design.

Combining coverage of full design installations for a wide variety of settings with an in-depth examination of individual elements that range from exterior landscaping and approach to interior finishes, furnishings, signage, and more, this superb visual guide is an inspiring idea resource to creatively integrate people of all ages and abilities. -- Amazon

From the Back Cover
The freedom to go beyond compliance . . .

Following in the successful footsteps of the award-winning book, Beautiful Barrier-Free, universal design experts Cynthia A. Leibrock and James Evan Terry present a fresh generation of flexible design solutions in Beautiful Universal Design.

Combining coverage of full design installations for a wide variety of settings with an in-depth examination of individual elements that range from exterior landscaping and approach to interior finishes, furnishings, signage, and more, this superb visual guide is an inspiring idea resource to creatively integrate people of all ages and abilities.

Working Against Odds: Stories of Disabled Women's Work Lives

by: Mary Grimley Mason, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Amazon Price: $5.00 (as of 06/01/2012)

Working Against Odds: Stories of Disabled Women's Work Lives

"An offering motivated by respectful curiosity, admiration, compassion, and the hope of raising public awareness . . ."--Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly

In this well-crafted ethnographic study of disabled women's relationship with work, Mary Grimley Mason describes the viewpoints, struggles, strategies, and triumphs of eighteen women with a range of physical and sensory impairments. She relates how each came to terms with her disability and achieved self-identity and self-sufficiency in an able-bodied world.

Drawing on thirty extensive interviews, Mason skillfully interweaves her own experience of childhood polio with the voices of impaired women across generations and from diverse race, ethnic, class, and work backgrounds.

Although each woman's story and perspective are unique, the compelling narratives in this illuminating and teachable volume reveal shared concerns and feelings about the ways in which the disabled see themselves, how others perceive the impaired, and how our workplace culture perpetuates the double hindrance of gender and disability discrimination.

The women profiled here express in their own words the process of claiming their disability and integrating it into their identity, the adjustment to various dependencies and caregivers, and approaches to coping with social discrimination and marginalization. They also discuss overcoming such obstacles in the workplace as an employer's refusal to grant an interview, lack of accommodations after employment, and negative stereotyping on the job or in job placement.

In these accounts we meet, for example, Debbie, born with cerebral palsy, who struggled to get her family to accept her as she is; Barbara, born with orthopedic problems, who confronted her mother's fear that she would not be employed or find a husband; and Adrienne, blind from birth, who aggressively confronted discrimination in the workplace through litigation.

Taken together, the stories of these ordinary yet remarkable individuals build a sense of community. Working against Odds tells disabled women that they are not alone in grappling with the tremendous barriers to independence and helps able-bodied readers understand the challenging life choices and work experiences of those with impairments. As a whole, the insightful book offers an intimate view of disability history and issues in America. -- Amazon

All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache

by: Paula Kamen

Amazon Price: $1.82 (as of 06/01/2012)

All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache

This is a book we have and recommend.

Imagine the sensation of a fishhook lodged behind your left eye and tugging backwards. Now imagine that you live with that pain 24 hours a day for 15 years. That is Kamen's headache, one that she attempted at first to cure but finally learned to accept. Kamen (Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution) first tried all sorts of drugs-some were addicting, others made her gain 70 pounds in six months; none had any effect on the pain.

She turns to alternative medicine: cranial-sacral adjustments, acupuncture, gluten-free diets, magnets, yoga. Kamen intersperses her account of these increasingly bizarre treatments with a look at how Western medicine, and even feminism, abandons patients with chronic pain and other invisible ailments: since her pain has no discernible physical cause, she has been told it's "all in her head." This book may not be uplifting, but it is undeniably funny.

Kamen's irreverent sense of humor about her pain and herself makes the book a delight to read as she unabashedly pokes fun at the corporate pharmaceutical industry (even while she hopes for a test-tube cure), doctors and other caregivers. Kamen makes the reader understand what it is like to be happy even while one is in pain. © Reed Business Information, ref. to hardcover ed. - Amazon

A Husband, A Wife, & An Illness: Living Life Beyond Chronic Illness

by: Dr. William July, Jamey Lacy July

Amazon Price: $11.76 (as of 06/01/2012)