Owing up to and admitting to having a learning disability as an adult – something I have tried to cover up for most of my 45 years – is not an admission that I would have considered making until four years ago. It was then that I discovered there was a name for what I live with every day. I learned that it is a disability that affects between four to six percent of the world’s population. It has been recognized for decades by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but very little is known about the disorder in Australia, the country of my birth. The title of my book, How to yodel standing on your head in a toilet – It's as easy as living in a world without numbers, came to me very quickly once I actually began to write my story. But what’s a toilet got to do with anything? I hear you ask. There is a very simple answer. In writing a book about a disability it is important to communicate to people how it makes you feel, and the emotions you experience. I could have simply called my book ‘Two and two don’t make four’ or ‘Life simply doesn’t add up,’ but would you really want to read something like that? Neither of these two or the many other alternatives really explains the endless frustrations of dealing with a learning disability or how to develop the strength to overcome it.

In his poignant memoir, Williams narrates the story of how he beat overwhelming odds, as an African American youth growing up in a public housing project in Brooklyn, New York, to eventually become a physician. While chronicling a journey that took him from the streets of New York through the challenges of medical school to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Croix, he details how he learned to prevail over racism, anxiety, and depression in order to achieve his dream of becoming a doctor.

Dr. Williams’s inspiring story offers motivation to soar over the challenges of life and reach for the stars.

Mental illness has been my life. It began with deep dark feelings of internal horribleness at age 10 and culminated with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder in my late 30s. What is it like to live with a mental illness? Confusing. For years I could not decipher between real and not real. Dreams, hallucinations and real life blended into one reality. My hallucinations mostly consisted of my being raped. It could happen at any time. Voices would tell me to do things such as drive into a wall or shred my skin. Still, until a major breakdown at age 34 where I discovered I had no self, I was able to hide my terrifying life. I've been hospitalized 2 1/2 times and one year I took medical leave from my job. Proper diagnosis took years. My diagnosis history included Histrionic, Major Depression, Multiple Personality Disorder, and finally Schizoaffective Disorder. With the right therapist, and time, came the correct diagnosis; with the correct diagnosis, came the medication that helped bring my life under control in a good way.

The journey has been a long one. Writing my story has been one of physical and emotional need. I had to write it. My message is one of hope. My therapist has written her perspective, too, adding to the completeness of my story. I want people to have a better understanding of mental illness. I want people to know how horrible a mental illness can be, and that there can be hope.

The Ritual is a story of sadness and of strife, written by a woman who struggled with an illness that kept her in mental institutions for much of her adult life. While awaiting insulin shock therapy at Creedmore Hospital, Judy Radi kept a secret journal of her experience. At times, she seemed out of place among the patients, as she was "not the sickest of the sick." but her private journal gives testament to her battle with the demons that occupied her mind and tore her away from her family. Through the pages of The Ritual, Judy Radi shares her most intimate feelings and guides the reader on a journey of survival and self discovery.

Front line combat soldier in General Patton's Third Army WWII

Stanford University--worked 40 hours a week and carried full load

Invented flexible endoscope (fiber optics) 1952

Family practice 42 years in small town (Hollister) West Central California

Had 12 foreign students live in my home, go to school and become part of my life

Learned to fly. Joined Flying Doctors and made over 100 trips to Mexico over 30 years

Earthquake West Yellowstone, Montana 1985. Flew in set up an aide station and cared for the injured

Associate professor at Stanford Medical School and University of California at Davis, medical school

Martin Luther King. Marched for freedom at Selma 1965

Earthquake Mexico 1985. Set up and led rescue team to care for the injured

Returned with Rotary Club and Flying Doctors to help rebuild and totally re-equip hospital in Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico

China: went there just after Tienanmen Square

Returned to China several time to try to get Rotary Clubs accepted. Helped to bring equipment to large Chinese hospitals

Developed a new mechanical theory about gravity and cosmology

Growing up in Lima, Ohio during the Depression Era was a time of great adventures for Duke Murray. In these affectionate memoirs, Duke (aka. Dr. Emmett Murray, a retired family physician), tells 35 favorite stories from his boyhood years in the Midwest.

After some early mishaps, Duke's entry into grade school opens new worlds of enjoyment. Horace Mann Elementary School and its vast playgrounds receive long and affectionate descriptions. Adventures on his own find Duke up at dawn to watch the Big Top circuses set up, hauling huge ice blocks while working at Lima Ice and Coal, training the family beagle to hunt and to win show prizes, and taking X-rays of steel castings at a tank plant. Duke helps an eccentric neighbor go after night crawlers, and he faces death and family alcoholism in a school friend's life.

The book conveys the atmosphere of daily life in the 1930s, and Murray's contemporaries will find many a brand name and Age of Radio show to identify with. But Duke Murray goes beyond these to describe also the sounds, the tastes and the smells of the time. "Saturday night in Lima, 1930s Style" is a golden example of his talent for evoking atmosphere.

Murray communicates a special fascination with life on the farm and with the industry and humor of farming people. He describes the big meals, the homemade ice cream and grapes from the arbor. But his fondest memories are of making hay, raising chickens, cattle and hogs, and watching his aunts put up canned food stores for company in the days before modern refrigeration.

The book goes on to describe the dawning realization by America of the inevitability of World War II, and the rather frightening experiences of enlistment and service by all the three Murray sons in the U.S. Army. The book's chronology ends with Duke Murray in medical school, entertaining himself by winning a tall tale radio contest in Columbus, and singing in barbershop quartets with his dissecting partners over their cadaver.

These tales will be especially enjoyed by fans of Lima and Allen County, who will respond with glee to references such as the Lima Rescue Mission and the Kewpee Hamburger Restaurant. However, the stories are more than local memoirs in that they evoke the 1930s overall, and depict the universal struggles of a young person learning to fill his shoes in America.

The book includes a map of Duke's old neighborhood, his immediate family tree, an appreciation of his storytelling history, and contact information. Come Reminisce with Me sounds a note of optimism with its attitude that life presents experiences from which lessons may often be derived. Dr. Murray shows that happiness and laughter can happen anywhere, and that life may not be perfect, but that it still offers a lot to enjoy, appreciate and be grateful for at every turn.

Book Review in the LIMA NEWSwww.limanews.com/story.php?IDnum=204

I have written Diabetes / My Life with emotions from the deepest recesses of my heart, and have shared my innermost feelings and fears of being an insulin dependent diabetic for over half of my life.

I would be foolish to try and tell you that I am not afraid of this disease, because I am.

Every little ache, pain, twitch or strange feelings makes me wonder what is happening now?? Where wil this lead me, and what can, and will, I be able to do about it.

While there still is no cure for this chronic illness, I sincerely hope that you, or your loved ones, can learn and benefit from my experiences.

There is an abundance of material available that has been written by physicians, educators, dieticians, etc...But, there is nothing to compare with the personal side of this chronic illness....as can be written by someone who has walked along the same path that you are headed down...

Diabetes / My Life - Patient's Perspective

Road to Restoration Through the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer and Walking on by Faith provides hope, new perspective and insight into ways of overcoming the many challenges of living with cancer. It touches mind, body, spirit and soul of everyone who reads it.

Road to Restoration also includes an effective reference guide containing informative resources and educational information. As a learning tool, it gives powerful information to enlighten and educate women regarding a cancer diagnosis.

Road to Restoration is one woman's testimony of determination and perseverance. It provides inspiration by offering personal reflections from a 15-year breast cancer survivor and 14 other courageous survivors and their families and friends about how the cancer diagnosis affected their lives. It is surely to be a blessing to all those who read it.

Luther Christman, a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual family man, had none of the attributes normally associated with discrimination. Yet he encountered gender discrimination because he was a man in a woman's profession. He was called a pervert when requesting maternity experience. He was refused admission to the Army Nurse Corps in World War II, and entry to two university nursing programs simply because he was a man.

Undeterred, Christman gained qualifications in psychology and his research lead to high level appointments in university nursing facilities. A capable administrator, he became the first male to hold the joint appointments of dean of nursing and hospital director of nursing. He developed the Rush Model of nursing that gained him an international reputation as a nursing leader. Despite these achievements he hit a glass ceiling in the middle of his career.

The biography describes Christman's strategic plans for the development of the nursing profession, which entailed a critique of its organization, policies, practices, education and female domination that challenged nursing leaders, physicians and hospital leaders alike.

But in the end, the profession that put so many barriers in his path deemed him a 'Living Legend'. As a retired, sprightly 90 year-old, he reviews books for the American Journal of Nursing, is president of the American Assembly for Men in Nursing and is still a provocative advocate for his vision of nursing.

This book is about the author's experiences practicing general medicine in Quesnel, B.C., from 1951 to 1961. The book is written in primarily anecdotal form. It is intended for the general reader. Medical concepts are described in simple terms.

In order to put matters in perspective, the author starts by relating, again in mainly anecdotal form, his experiences completing pre-medicine, medical school and his internship.

In the latter part of the book the author compares (in terms that can be followed by the general audience), the practice of medicine in the 1950s to now. For example, he discusses the impact of universal health care when it was introduced in the 1960s. As well, the author explains why he feels a young physician should seriously consider at least part of his career practicing medicine in a rural, rather than an urban area.

This is a memoir of how a non-Marine doctor, new to the Marines, relates his occurrences and the relationships with the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir and other battles. Personalities of the Marines are noted: their abilities to overcome huge odds against them are described. But, after all, Marines are simply young men trained to deal with stress  and conduct a war.