Biography & Autobiography : Medical

Nick Van Bloss was 7 years old when he had his first tic: a sudden compulsion to shake his head from left to right, twice in rapid succession. It wasn't until 15 years later that he was diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. This book allows us into the heart and mind of a wonderfully witty and talented man. more...

Price: $14.99

"I was destined for a life of medical drama from day one," begins this comic memoir with a mission. Iwas destined for a life of medical drama from day one," begins this comic memoir with a mission. "I was born in the month of July, and my horoscope sign is a disease (Cancer). The symbol for Cancer? A crab (the sexually transmitted critter). Not only that, my parents named me Shawn Timothy Decker, which makes my initials S.T.D. Shawn Decker isn't quite the All-American boy. Sure, he gets caught shoplifting copies of Penthouse; is crazy about prowrestling, especially "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair; and never has a problem getting dates. But he's also a hemophiliac who discovers, at age eleven, that he has contracted HIV from tainted blood products. Instead of becoming self-pitying and dying (as first predicted), Shawn develops a twisted sense of humor, meets Depeche Mode through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and writes on blogs and in Poz magazine about what it's like being hetero and HIV-positive in rural Virginia. He also turns to gay men for advice on dating women and, almost twenty years after getting HIV, marries Gwenn Barringer, who is HIV-negative and a former competitor for the title of Miss Virginia. Together Shawn and Gwenn travel the country, speaking to high school and college kids about how to live and love with HIV (and how to avoid getting it). more...

Price: $9.95

In Losing My Mind, DeBaggio laid bare his faltering mind in a lovely, poignant meditation on the centrality of memory to human life. In When It Gets Dark, he further charts the progress of both his disease and his emotional and intellectual responses to it. Now, in addition to his loss of memory, DeBaggio confronts the ultimate loss: that of life. DeBaggio deftly describes the frustration, grief, and terror of grappling with his deteriorating faculties. Even more affecting, the prose itself masterfully represents the mental vicissitudes of his disease--DeBaggio's fragments of memory, observation, and rumination surface and subside in the reader's experience much as they operate in his own mind. The narrative weaves these fragments into a fluid and vivid portrayal of life and loss by virtue of his frank, lilting voice and generous sense of wonder at the world around him. Over the course of the book, DeBaggio revisits many of the people, places, and events of his life, both in his memory and in fact. In a sense, he is saying goodbye, paying his respects to the world as it increasingly moves beyond his grasp. It is a poignant irony that as the world recedes from him, he is working at the height of his considerable descriptive powers. In his moments of clarity, his love for the details of his life seems only to become richer and deeper: the limestone creek where he fished for years; his lonely and satisfying herb gardening days; the goldfish pond his son designed and built in his backyard because DeBaggio has a passion for "any hole in the ground with some liquid in it;" his 30 years in the same beloved home in Arlington, Virginia; his early career as a muckraker; the innumerable precious moments spent with his wife and son; his belated grief over his parents' deaths. Adeptly navigating between sorrow and joy, fear and courage, confusion and clarity, DeBaggio delivers a stunning, inspiring portrait of life with Alzheimer's Disease. Bolstered by more...

Price: $16.95

From the frontier to the university, this exciting collection traces the development of the nursing profession through the biographies of individual nurses since 1925 that helped to create its unique history. Among the notable nurses featured in this volume are Faye Abdellah, Virginia Henderson, Margaret Kerr, Thelma Schorr, and many more. more...

Price: $80.00

The year is 1688 and it is a clear Spring day in Paris. At the court of Chastelet a distinguished and learned crowd is gathered to view the trial of Jean-Baptise Denis a bright young mathematician with an interest in medicine. Denis has recently earned himself a place in history by being the first person to perform a blood transfusion on a human being. But things have not gone well for Denis or for Antoine Mauroy, his patient. Mauroy has died and Denis is on trial for murder. more...

Price: $32.50