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DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Journals and memoirs, Biography of persons with disabilities, Canadian biography
Human-narrated audio
Twenty-three-year-old Ardra Shephard is sleeping with the wrong guy, living in a crappy apartment, and spending money she doesn't have…
on designer shoes, boozy brunches, and weekends in NYC. Making mistakes while you figure stuff out is what your twenties are all about. Then a doctor tells Ardra she has MS, and those two letters split her life into a Before and After. While over a million people in North America live with Multiple Sclerosis, there is no certainty when it comes to the progression of the disease. By her mid-thirties, Ardra is struggling to walk, and it's terrifying. When she starts using mobility aids, she faces feelings of otherness and not belonging like never before. As Ardra's deepest fears keep coming true, she starts to learn the most important lesson: She's been sold a lie about disability—it isn't a fate worse than death. Having survived all of her worst-case scenarios, she begins to realize that a difficult life doesn't have to be a joyless life. Fallosophy isn't about fighting an unwinnable battle. This is a story about Plan Bs and pivots. Ardra serves up wisdom like a bartender who has been there: with good humor and a gentle refusal to sugarcoat reality—in this case, what it's really like to walk unsteadily through life with a progressive, disabling illness in a world that would rather not build a ramp
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Journals and memoirs, Biography of persons with disabilities, Canadian biography
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
"A memoir based on columnist, fashion-show TV host, podcaster and MS advocate Ardra Shephard's award-winning blog, Tripping on Air. Twenty-three-year-old…
Ardra Shephard is sleeping with the wrong guy, living in a crappy apartment, and spending money she doesn't have on designer shoes, boozy brunches and weekends in NYC. She hates her office job, but it pays for the lessons she needs to make it as an opera singer. She isn't thrilled about her current situation, but she isn't panicked. She knows she's got time! Making mistakes while you figure stuff out is what your twenties are all about. But then when a doctor tells Ardra she has MS, those two letters split her life into a Before and After. While over a million people in Canada and the United States live with Multiple Sclerosis, there is no certainty when it comes to the progression of the disease. By her mid-thirties, Ardra is struggling to walk, and it's terrifying. When she starts using mobility aids, she faces feelings of otherness and not belonging like never before. As Ardra's deepest fears keep coming true, she starts to learn the most important lesson: She's been sold a lie about disability--it isn't a fate worse than death. Having so far survived all of her worst-case scenarios, she begins to realize that a difficult life doesn't have to be a joyless life. Today, twenty years after her diagnosis, Ardra's journey isn't over. MS will always be a force to be reckoned with, but the woman Ardra is, day after day, is no longer negotiable. Fallosophy serves up wisdom like a seasoned bartender who's seen it all, and doesn't try to sugarcoat what it's really like to live with a progressive, disabling illness in a world that would rather not build a ramp."
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Journals and memoirs, Biography of persons with disabilities
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
"When Kate Gies was four years old, a plastic surgeon pressed a synthetic ear to the right side of her…
head and pulled out a mirror. He told her he could make her "whole"--could make her "right"--and she believed him. From the age of four to thirteen, she underwent fourteen surgeries, including skin and bone grafts, to craft the appearance of an outer ear. Many of the surgeries failed, leaving permanent damage to her body. In short, lyrical vignettes, Kate writes about how her "disfigured" body was scrutinized, pathologized, and even weaponized. She describes the physical and psychic trauma of medical intervention, and its effects on her sense of self, first as a child needing to be fixed, and later, as a teenager and adult, navigating the complex expectations and dangers of being a woman. It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is the story of a girl desperately trying to have a body that makes her acceptable and of a woman learning to own a body she never felt was hers to define. In an age of speaking out about the abuse of marginalized bodies, this memoir takes a hard look at the medical system's role in body oppression and trauma."