The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma UnitFresh Pond PressTrue and Fast-Paced Stories of Life on the Surgical-Trauma Unit at a City Hospital"It's not the Ritz but this is the best place in the city for treating trauma. The nurses and doctors here are trauma experts. This is where I would want my relatives to be," Laurie Barkin tells upset visitors at San Francisco General Hospital who are waiting to find out what happened to the...

The CBC Literary Award–winning title story from Claire Battershill’s debut collection, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award, and a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award and the PEN International / New Voices Award.For as long as Susan can remember, the circus has been part of her family’s DNA – her mother was a gifted contortionist, and her grandfather played the role of a man-wrestling bear. Coming from suc...

Psychotherapist Michael Pond is no stranger to the devastating consequences of alcoholism. He has helped hundreds of people conquer their addictions, but this knowledge did not prevent his own near-demise. In this riveting memoir, he recounts how he lost his practice, his home, and his family-all because of his drinking. After scores of visits to the ER, a tour of hellish recovery homes, a stint in intensive care for end-stage alcoholism, and jail, Pond devised his own personal plan for re...

ICU nurse and bestselling author Tilda Shalof learns what nursing beyond the hospital really means. For the 350,000 professional nurses in Canada and 3 million in the US; readers of Atul Gawande's award-winning books and The American Nurse by Carole Jones.In her latest book, ICU nurse Tilda Shalof leaves the hospital behind to accompany the nurses who work in homes, from mansions to shacks to the streets, all across the country. Working with the Victorian ...

We’re all stronger than we think, and we often discover our inner strength and resilience when a problem arises. The 101 empowering stories in this collection will inspire and encourage you to overcome your own challenges.There’s nothing like real stories from real people to inspire you. These empowering and uplifting stories by people who have overcome challenges, solved problems, or changed their lives will help you find your own inner strength, resilience, and r...

From the Executive Director of Mental Health for Correctional Services in New York City, comes a revelatory and deeply compassionate memoir that takes readers inside Bellevue, and brings to life the world—the system, the staff, and the haunting cases—that shaped one young psychiatrist as she learned how to doctor and how to love.Elizabeth Ford went through medical school unsure of where she belonged. It wasn’t until she did her psychiatry rotation that she found he...

During her stint as a palliative care pediatrician, Sherry Scott believed "healthy grieving" was directly attributed to how well the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the patient and family were met while undergoing end-of-life care. "The idea of a good bereavement blew up in my face after the death of my mom, because the year that followed revealed just how quirky and misunderstood grieving could be. I discovered it to be uniquely personal, particularly when, for fear of being l...

This self-help book describes how I've managed to survive and thrive with bipolar disorder for over 25 years. It offers tips on how to pick a good psychiatrist, how to handle depression, anxiety and insomnia, and how to help a loved one who's going through a manic episode. It shares with you the lessons I've learned, sometimes the hard way, over the years and also explores the "good crazy" side of being bipolar--and yes, there are some good sides, believe it or not. Many with this disorder...

For readers of Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi, a palliative care doctor's breathtaking stories from 30 years spent caring for the dying.Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. And for the most part, that is good news. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar, peaceful, and gentle -- if sorrowful -- transition, death has come to be something from...

What's happening to me?This book translates anxiety from the jargon of psychologyinto concrete experiences that children can relate to.Children and their parents will understand the biologicaland emotional components of anxiety responsible forthe upsetting symptoms they experience. Please ExplainAnxiety to Me, 2nd Edition gives accurate physiological information inchild friendly language. A colorful dinosaur story explainsthe link between brain and body fun...

In this groundbreaking collection, well-known and cutting-edge authors bring to light life with mental illness. These evocative essays, by writers who either suffer from or have close family members diagnosed with mental illness or a developmental disorder, aim to break down the stigma that surrounds one of the most devastating of human tribulations. The writers recount their experiences with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, clinical depression, post-...

A Caregivers TaleWhen Eve suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm, Madonna Siles, her housemate and friend, too quickly found herself making critical short- and long-term medical care decisions without any help. When the insurance and financial resources ran out and the conventional therapy providers discharged zombie-like Eve to the homecare of a solitary caregiver, both their futures seemed hopeless.Instead of giving up, Madonna Siles drew on life experience and her marketing career to deve...