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I Can't Remember
Family Stories of Alzheimer's Disease
Esther Strauss Smoller
Temple University Press, 1997
I Can't Remember is an intimate photo essay of four families and their process of coping with Alzheimer's disease -- a process of coming to terms with the practical and emotional consequences of a disease that changes the entire family dynamic. Family members tell their stories of first denying that their loved one cold be suffering from Alzheimer's, then dealing with the changing relationships among family members and the intensifying emotions, as old family troubles are stirred up and new feelings of despair and love appear.

Photographs and  personal narratives are woven together to show both the unpleasant and the beautiful sides of the struggle for connection between spouses and across generations. Smoller has a gift for capturing people as they interact, whether it's arguing around the kitchen table or dancing cheek to cheek.

Each family's story is different, but all four families share common pain and frustration. A highway patrolman who has early onset Alzheimer's describes what it is like to have Alzheimer's. His wife tells a parallel story of life together after hearing the diagnosis. A daughter gives the following account of her mother: "I though that it would be helpful if mother spent time in my home in Colorado. Before this visit, I was in denial, convinced that she suffered from depression and not Alzheimer's disease. ... On the plane trip to Colorado, I was brought into the stark, cold reality that Mom had Alzheimer's. She did not know where she was or where she was going. Upon arrival, she did not recognize my home, although she had visited me numerous times in the past. She tried sleeping in the bathtub the first night."

Another daughter relates that she was unaware of the onset of Alzheimer's in her mother, because her mother was such a "wonderful actress." Eventually the memory problems were no longer confined to where things belonged in the kitchen, but extended into driving off at random, driving in circles in a parking lot in the middle of the night or as much as 75 miles away from home.

I Can't Remember gives an intimate glimpse into the hearts and minds of caregivers and patients. Supportive social networks are essential for healthy life. This book provides the impetus caregivers need to develop contacts that can provide support. Smoller offers a glimpse of the frustration and losses faced by those who deal with Alzheimer's, as well as the potential to transcend those losses -- even is only for a time -- through love and hope.
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‘I Know Who Caused COVID-19’
Pandemics and Xenophobia
Zhou Xun and Sander L. Gilman
Reaktion Books, 2021
A timely exploration of the global explosion in xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Through a close analysis of four cases from around the world, this book explores prejudice toward groups who are thought to have caused and spread COVID-19: the residents of Wuhan and Black African communities in China; ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel; African-Americans in the United States and Black/Asian/mixed ethnic communities in the United Kingdom; and White right-wing groups in the United States and Europe. The authors examine stereotyping and the false attribution of blame towards these groups, as well as what happens when a collective is actually at fault, and how the community deals with these conflicting issues.
 
This is a timely, cogent examination of the blame and xenophobia that have been brought to the surface by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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ICD Connection
Living with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator: A Collection of Patient & Family Stories
Edited by Helen McFarland, RN
Michigan Publishing Services, 2012
Ten ICD recipients and family members share, in their own words, their unique journey of living with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), cardiac arrhythmia, and for some, sudden cardiac arrest. These personal stories represent a diverse collection of experiences from many perspectives such as age, gender, culture, and diagnoses. These ten authors offer advice, encouragement, and hope to others living with similar experiences. The book also includes educational information and resources regarding ICD’s and advice from a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping ICD recipients and family members with emotional and psychological issues related to ICD implantation and cardiac arrhythmia. The book is an educational and support resource for anyone who has been touched by cardiac illness or ICD implantation. It also serves well for healthcare providers as it offers insight and understanding into the patients and families perspective after ICD implantation.
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ICD Connection
Living with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator: A Collection of Stories from Women & Men
Edited by Helen McFarland, RN
Michigan Publishing Services, 2014
The book includes 13 first-hand accounts from women and men who are living life with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). The book examines similarities and unique differences women and men face during diverse life stages with an ICD and cardiac disease diagnosis. General information about ICD’s is included along with expert advice from well-published doctors in the field of anxiety, fear, and depression after ICD implantation and ICD shock.
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The Ice Bucket Challenge
Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS
Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge
University Press of New England, 2017
While everyone knows of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral craze that swept the nation in summer 2014, too few know the truly inspirational story behind it. Pete Frates was a man at war with his own body. A man whose love for others was unshakable. A man who refused to fight alone, and in so doing mobilized a global army to combat one of the most devastating diseases on earth: ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. When disease crippled Frates, the former Boston College baseball star turned tragedy into inspiration. Pete’s story is a testament to the power of love, the steadfastness of family, the generosity of strangers, and the compassion of crowds. Half of the authors’ proceeds will go to the Frates family.
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Imagining Illness
Public Health and Visual Culture
David Serlin
University of Minnesota Press, 2010
From seventeenth-century broadsides about the handling of dead bodies, printed during London's plague years, to YouTube videos about preventing the transmission of STDs, public health advocacy and education has always had a powerful visual component. Imagining Illness explores the diverse visual culture of public health, broadly defined, from the nineteenth century to the present.

Contributors to this volume examine historical and contemporary visual practices-Chinese health fairs, documentary films produced by the World Health Organization, illness maps, fashions for nurses, and live surgery on the Internet-in order to delve into the political and epidemiological contexts underlying their creation and dissemination.
 
Contributors: Liping Bu, Alma College; Lisa Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Roger Cooter, U College London; William H. Helfand; Lenore Manderson, Monash U, Australia; Emily Martin, New York U; Gregg Mitman, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Mark Monmonier, Syracuse U; Kirsten Ostherr, Rice U; Katherine Ott, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian; Shawn Michelle Smith, Art Institute of Chicago; Claudia Stein, Warwick U.
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Immunization
How Vaccines became Controversial
Stuart Blume
Reaktion Books, 2021
As the world pins its hope for the end of the coronavirus pandemic to the successful rollout of vaccines, this book offers a vital long view of such efforts—and our resistance to them.
 
At a time when vaccines are a vital tool in the fight against COVID-19 in all its various mutations, this hard-hitting book takes a longer historical perspective. It argues that globalization and cuts to healthcare have been eroding faith in the institutions producing and providing vaccines for more than thirty years. It tells the history of immunization from the work of early pioneers such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch through the eradication of smallpox in 1980, to the recent introduction of new kinds of genetically engineered vaccines. Immunization exposes the limits of public health authorities while suggesting how they can restore our confidence. Public health experts and all those considering vaccinations should read this timely history.
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Improving Dementia Long-Term Care
A Policy Blueprint
Regina A. Shih
RAND Corporation, 2014
In 2010, 15 percent of Americans older than age 70 had dementia. By 2050, the number of new dementia cases among those 65 and older is expected to double. This blueprint outlines policy options to help decisionmakers improve dementia long-term services and supports (LTSS) by promoting earlier detection, improving access to LTSS, promoting person- and caregiver-centered care, supporting caregivers, and reducing dementia LTSS costs.
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In Changing Times
Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS
Edited by Martin P. Levine, Peter M. Nardi, and John H. Gagnon
University of Chicago Press, 1997
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has been a major catastrophe for gay communities. In less than two decades, the disease has profoundly changed the lives of gay men and lesbians. Not just a biological and viral agent, HIV has become an opportunistic social invader, reshaping communities and the distribution of wealth, altering the social careers of gay professionals and the patterns of entry into gay and lesbian life, and giving birth to groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation.

The distinguished contributors to this volume discuss the ways HIV/AIDS has changed collective and individual identities, as well as lives, of gay men and lesbians, and how these alterations have changed our perceptions of the epidemic. They cover such topics as the impact of the epidemic on small towns, cultural barriers to AIDS prevention, gay youth and intergenerational relations, and the roles of lesbians in AIDS organizations. This collection provides compelling insights into the new communities among gay men and lesbians and the new kinds of identities and relationships that are emerging from the social and cultural ferment engendered by HIV/AIDS.

Contributors include Barry D. Adam, Lourdes Arguelles, Rafael Miguel Diaz, John H. Gagnon, Gilbert Herdt, Gregory M. Herek, Nan D. Hunter, Peter M. Nardi, John L. Peterson, Anne Rivero, Gayle S. Rubin, Beth E. Schneider, and Nancy E. Stoller.
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In Her Own Voice
Childbirth Stories from Mennonite Women
Katherine Martens
University of Manitoba Press, 1997
Winnipeg writer Katherine Martens interviewed 26 women from the Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, ranging in age from 22 to 88 years old. They had many different backgrounds, but they all had one important characteristic: all were mothers.In the course of these interviews, Martens was searching for answers to questions that affected her both as a Mennonite and as a woman. How did they feel when they learned of the pregnancy? How did they choose home or hospital birth? How did the traditions of the Mennonite culture affect them as wives and mothers? As they talked, many spoke about the joys and trials of giving birth, and they also told Martens stories about other parts of their lives. Some had escaped the Russian Revolution to emigrate to Canada; others spent their entire lives in rural Manitoba, part of the close-knit Mennonite community, running farms and bearing as many as 15 children. Younger women who had formally left the Mennonite church were still conscious of the impact of the beliefs and customs on their lives.Many women were surprised to be approached for an interview, insisting that they had "no stories to tell." One was visited in a dream by her dead husband, who told her to "leave that alone." Yet, in the privacy of their kitchens and parlours, over sociable cups of tea, many did share with Martens their private fears and joys about what was often seen as a rite of passage into responsible adulthood, and they recalled that childbirth could be a difficult and, at times, traumatic event, but it could also be a radiant and spiritual experience.
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Inside/Outside
A Physician's Journey with Breast Cancer
Janet R. Gilsdorf, M.D.
University of Michigan Press, 2006
To doctors, cancer means cells growing out of control; to patients, cancer means a life spinning out of control. Janet R. Gilsdorf, who writes with quiet but devastating honesty about her experience with breast cancer, offers an eye-opening glimpse, through her unique dual perspective as physician and patient, of both sides of the medical divide.

The medical system delivers cures, answers, and relief from pain to those who seek its help, but it can also offer misinformation, shattered expectations, horrible options, and inhumane consideration of the people it is supposed to serve. As Gilsdorf takes us on a journey across the terrifying landscape of cancer, she discovers that there are oases of unfathomable beauty to be found.

Inside/Outside is compelling, sometimes scary, reading as it puts us inside Gilsdorf’s skin. It ponders a vast array of profound choices most of us will be confronted with in our lives: thinking versus feeling, knowing versus not knowing, hanging on versus letting go, loving versus hating, and the immeasurable territories of life between the poles. Even as it touches on these universal human themes, ultimately Inside/Outside is a story of one person’s courage, hope, and survival in the face of terrifying odds.
Janet R. Gilsdorf, M.D., is Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, Division of Infectious Diseases, Medical School, and Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, at the University of Michigan. She is also Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Mott Children's Hospital; Director of the Cell and Molecular Biology in Pediatrics Training Program; and Director of the Haemophilus influenzae Research Laboratory.
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International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia
Whittaker, Andrea
Rutgers University Press, 2019
During the last two decades, a new form of trade in commercial surrogacy grew across Asia. Starting in India, a “disruptive” model of surrogacy offered mass availability, rapid accessibility, and created new demands for surrogacy services from people who could not afford or access surrogacy elsewhere.
 
In International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia, Andrea Whittaker traces the development of this industry and its movement across Southeast Asia following a sequence of governmental bans in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia. Through a case study of the industry in Thailand, the book offers a nuanced and sympathetic examination of the industry from the perspectives of the people involved in it: surrogates, intended parents, and facilitators. The industry offers intended parents the opportunity to form much desired families, but also creates vulnerabilities for all people involved. These vulnerabilities became evident in cases of trafficking, exploitation, and criminality that emerged in southeast Asia, leading to greater scrutiny on the industry as a whole. Yet the trade continues in new flexible hybrid forms, involving the circulation of reproductive gametes, embryos, surrogates, and ova donors across international borders to circumvent regulations. The book demonstrates the need for new forms of regulation to protect those involved in international surrogacy arrangements.
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Is It Me or My Meds?
Living with Antidepressants
David A. Karp
Harvard University Press, 2007

By the millennium Americans were spending more than 12 billion dollars yearly on antidepressant medications. Currently, millions of people in the U.S. routinely use these pills. Are these miracle drugs, quickly curing depression? Or is their popularity a sign that we now inappropriately redefine normal life problems as diseases? Are they prescribed too often or too seldom? How do they affect self-images?

David Karp approaches these questions from the inside, having suffered from clinical depression for most of his adult life. In this book he explores the relationship between pills and personhood by listening to a group of experts who rarely get the chance to speak on the matter--those who are taking the medications. Their voices, extracted from interviews Karp conducted, color the pages with their experiences and reactions--humor, gratitude, frustration, hope, and puzzlement. Here, the patients themselves articulate their impressions of what drugs do to them and for them. They reflect on difficult issues, such as the process of becoming committed to medication, quandaries about personal authenticity, and relations with family and friends.

The stories are honest and vivid, from a distraught teenager who shuns antidepressants while regularly using street drugs to a woman who still yearns for a spiritual solution to depression even after telling intimates "I'm on Prozac and it's saving me." The book provides unflinching portraits of people attempting to make sense of a process far more complex and mysterious than doctors or pharmaceutical companies generally admit.

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It's Not Your Fault!
Strategies for Solving Toilet Training and Bedwetting Problems
Joseph Barone, M.D.
Rutgers University Press, 2015
Millions of children over the age of five wet their beds every night. Many parents think they must be doing something wrong when their five-year-old is still in diapers while their friends’ children are perfectly trained by eighteen months of age. This undoubtedly is a very embarrassing and frustrating problem for both the parent and child, and can interfere with family dynamics and a child’s ability to enjoy ordinary social situations.  

It’s Not Your Fault! offers evidence-based strategies for parents who need assistance with toilet training and helping their child with urinary control issues. Dr. Joseph Barone, M.D., provides proven techniques that bring bedwetting to a happy conclusion. Frequently, parents are misguided by bad advice from friends, TV talk shows, the Internet, or parenting books. With many years of clinical experience, Dr. Barone shares valuable, practical information for parents to guide them through the basics of toilet training and bedwetting, and presents management plans to resolve any difficulties that occur. A comprehensive guide, this book covers everything parents need to know about normal toilet training and bedwetting, as well as step-by-step solutions based on testing and research in a real-world setting to help children suffering from delayed toilet training, bed wetting, and daytime urinary wetting.

It’s Not Your Fault! provides hope and guidance to those desperate to help their children overcome urinary control and toilet training problems. Dr. Barone sets parents on a course that makes things better for both themselves and their children.
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