Stroke for Dummies
Author: John R Marler MD
Features tons of advice for recovery and rehabilitation
Get the latest on the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of stroke
Have questions and concerns about strokes? This reassuring guide provides invaluable information for stroke victims and their loved ones, from what a stroke is and what it feels like to proven treatments and therapies. You'll see how to implement a plan for preventing stroke, treat the lingering effects of stroke, and maximize home caregiver effectiveness while minimizing fatigue.
Discover how to:
• Understand what causes different types of stroke
• Recognize warning signs
• Get the most out of doctors and hospitals
• Speed recovery with the best treatments
• Help prevent future strokes
• Decide the best living arrangements after stroke
Table of Contents:
Introduction.Part I: The Brain and Stroke.
Chapter 1: A Brain Attack.
Chapter 2: Understanding How the Brain Works.
Part II: Types of Stroke.
Chapter 3: White Stroke (Ischemic): Blood Clots Block the Brain.
Chapter 4: Transient Stroke (TIA): Warning Sign.
Chapter 5: Red Stroke (ICH): Bleeding Inside the Brain.
Chapter 6: Red Stroke (SAH): Bleeding Outside the Brain.
Chapter 7: Dementia (Vascular Cognitive Impairment).
Part III: Preventing Stroke.
Chapter 8: High Blood Pressure.
Chapter 9: Fat and Stroke Risk.
Chapter 10: Other Risk Factors and Prevention.
Part IV: Treating Stroke.
Chapter 11: Get Thee to an Emergency Room.
Chapter 12: Treating Stroke in the Hospital.
Chapter 13: Rehabilitation.
Part V: Living with Stroke.
Chapter 14: Returning Home: Adapting to a New Life.
Chapter 15: When You Can’t Go Home Again.
Chapter 16: Challenges During Recovery.
Chapter 17: Taking Care of Family.
Part VI: The Part of Tens.
Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Help Your Community Manage Stroke.
Chapter 19: Five Remarkable Stroke Recoveries.
Chapter 20: Ten Opportunities to Prevent Stroke.
Glossary.
Index.
Interesting textbook: Operating Systems or Enterprise Resource Planning
Just Checking
Author: Emily Colas
As my friend the heroin addict says, "You're only as sick as your secrets."
Emily Colas -- young, intelligent, well-educated wife and mother of two -- had a secret that was getting in the way of certain activities. Like touching people. Having a normal relationship with her husband. Socializing. Getting a job. Eating out. Like leaving the house. Soon there was no interval in her life when she was not
just checking
This raw, darkly comic series of astonishing vignettes is Emily Colas' achingly honest chronicle of her twisted journey through the obsessive-compulsive disorder that came to dominate her world. In the beginning it was germs and food. By the time she faced the fact that she was really "losing it," Colas had become a slave to her own "hobbies" -- from the daily hair cutting to incessant inspections of her children's clothing for bloodstains.
A shocking, hilarious, enormously appealing account of a young woman struggling to gain control of her life, this is Emily Colas' exposé of a soul tormented, but balanced by a buoyance of spirit and a piercing sense of humor that may be her saving grace.
Publishers Weekly
What could have been a fascinating exploration of a complex psyche never gets much beyond the level of stand-up comedy in this disappointing memoir of a young woman's life with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Substituting sarcasm for insight, Colas presents brief, easily digestible tidbits describing her overwhelming fear that she might catch diseases from strangers. She recounts her bizarre rituals of handwashing, garbage disposal, 800-number calling (is this product really safe?) that eventually hurt others and destroyed her marriage. Colas can be funny --(an episode of the stranger's underpants in the laundromat dryer is especially amusing ("I called my OB to ask her if she'd be willing to test me for gonorrhea")--but her flat prose and superficial approach mask an intelligence that's never sufficiently engaged with this material--a typical analysis is, "It sucks big time." Though Colas provides occasional glimpses of a disturbed childhood, she quickly covers them up with her flippant comic routine. She's disappointed that her illness is less interesting than heroin addiction--it's just "insanity lite," she writes, and "Rock stars don't get magazine covers because they kept their audience waiting while they washed their hands twenty times." By keeping her book at the level of a Seinfeld routine, Colas ensures that readers will gain little insight into a condition that deserves better treatment than it gets in this memoir lite. (July)
Kirkus Reviews
A frank and funny first-person account of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Colas, a young woman obsessed with the notion of being poisoned by drugs slipped into her food or contaminated by germs from ground-up hypodermic needles or diseased blood, tells of her life as a neurotic. At first she shares her fears with her husband, requiring him to taste the food on her plate before she will eat it, to question waiters about possible nicks and cuts on their hands, and to remove his shoes before entering the house. He complies with her demands, even performing extraordinarily complicated rituals when disposing of the kitchen garbage. After the birth of her second child , with her husband's patience wearing thin, she begins trying to conceal her fears from him while still compulsively checking everything from the soles of shoes to breakfast cereal. The power of her obsessions can be seen in her totally irrational belief that simply viewing a bleeding man on television could cause her to become infected with his germs. Not surprisingly, the marriage eventually fails, and Colas goes to a therapist who prescribes Prozac, which frees her from the grip of her obsessive thoughts and compulsive rituals. In outline, the story sounds bleak if not dull, but Colas has a sure comic touch and a mocking self-awareness that makes her memoir a delight. She tells her story in brief scenes, not necessarily in chronological order, from her childhood at summer camp, where a compulsive neatness was already evident, to her post-divorce job as a bar waitress, where she can "smoke, drink, and be sarcastic, all while earning an honest living." With its unique patient's-eye viewpoint and perceptive honesty,a valuable contribution to the literature on obsessive-compulsive disorder.
What People Are Saying
Martha Manning
"Everyone knows what it's like to worry. But for most people, it's not a twenty-four-hour occupation. Emily Colas draws readers into a world dominated by details -- a dangerous world in which kitchen utensils are instruments of deadly contamination, restaurant food is probably poisoned, and a tiny paper cut is potentially fatal. Through a series of vignettes she paints a compelling picture of a life dominated by compulsions and the worries that fuel them. If she'd left it there, Just Checking would be a valuable case study of psychiatric illness. But Colas is a born storyteller, and a wickedly funny one at that. Just Checking is as hilarious as it is harowing -- a combination that makes it an engaging and ultimately powerful book." -- Author of Undercurrents and Chasing Grace
David Sedaris
"Just Checking is, in turn, mysterious, agonizing, and terribly funny. Emily Colas writes with such skill and honesty that I can't help but wish she suffers a relapse. It's selfish, I know, but I want more." -- Author of Naked
Judith Rapoport
"Just Checking is enormously enjoybale. In a humorous and entertaining fashion, Emily Colas tells us just what it is like to have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. She also tells us a great deal about a lot of other things that have nothing to do with OCD but are also fun to read and highly edifying. THIS BOOK IS A WINNER!" -- Author of The Boy Who couldn't Stop Washing
