Just One Word, Just One Smile: Life and Love After an Aneurysm

Just One Word, Just One Smile – A Memoir

An empty-nester couple, Sue and Tony, are travelling independently through South America when Sue endures a brain aneurysm. No one chooses Bolivia – the poorest country in South America – for brain surgery, but Sue has no choice. Weeks pass in South American hospitals, waiting on surgeries that threaten the very life that they try to save. Eventually, Sue is well enough to be transported back to Australia and spend further weeks in hospitals. When Sue is able to return to her home, Tony’s new role as the carer of a person with a dementia-like condition is glimpsed.

 “A good mix of heartfelt emotion and facts about stroke and associated recovery. It’s also a beautiful tribute to Sue that left me reaching for the tissues.”

Just Sign Here

If you think surgery is only about the drama of an operating theatre, then you should read this book. A delightful collection of anecdotal stories that will take the reader on a journey from boyhood aspiration through surgical training and on to consultant surgical practice that spanned the millennium. All is laid bare as the author describes his joy, anger, frustration, and sadness of life in the clinical environment and beyond.

It embraces a period of transition when clinicians were transformed from self-regulating professionals into paid employees controlled by political diktats from Brussels and Westminster. It is an entertaining account of a period of momentous change and advances in the world of surgical healthcare. A penetratingly candid page turner that will make you laugh, cry and huff with indignation.

Karmic Connections

A Sensational Window of Opportunity awaits you within the confines of these pages...

After a near-fatal accident, the author tells of the experiences that led to her recovery and further enhanced her existing spiritual belief system by pinpointing the issues you face in this life. You are shown how to identify them and ultimately release those blockages. She says: “… we are here not by accident but rather design.” And uses this as a platform to guide you, enhance the quality of your life, to enable you to evolve to a new level of understanding.

She was catapulted into a world of self-discovery; a privileged world which has offered profound experiences which she generously shares with you through her own personal story and that of her coterie of friends. Although she has the gift of clairaudience (to hear), something she denied for many years until she was prompted by her ‘guides’ to begin recording her amazing experiences to pen this manuscript. Ground-breaking information has been given to her courtesy of the Universe which is pure and true and provides a glimpse into the world beyond the linear of time as we consciously know it; one which provides us with the ability to manifest physical healing through a kaleidoscope of visual meditation techniques culminating into a pathway of cellular harmony.

Last Ghost To Kill

Last Ghost to Kill is a powerful book that delves into the often-overlooked pain of parent abandonment. It offers a safe space for those who suffer in silence to share their experiences and begin the healing process from their own traumas. With a compassionate and understanding approach, this book seeks to start an important conversation and provide the tools needed for individuals to overcome their abandonment issues. Whether you are struggling to cope with the emotional aftermath of parental abandonment or seeking to support a loved one who is, Last Ghost to Kill is an essential read that will help you navigate the complex emotions and find a path towards healing and wholeness.

Life Without My Family – Lone Survivor of Eleven Children

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was going to discover during my mother’s funeral. The level of trepidation I felt as I drew closer to my destination was held at bay only by the knowledge that my only surviving sister, Elizabeth, would be there with me, to keep each other company, and to share in the pain of bereavement. We had lost nine of our siblings, some as toddlers, and others as grown women.

My sister met me and walked with me towards the crowd of mourners, crying in each other’s arms as we walked. Our mother, our rock and prayer worrier had gone. We had lost a total of eleven people altogether including our dad. Our mother was put to rest. I returned to England after ten days not knowing that would be the last time I would see my sister. She passed away less than a year after my mum. Out of eleven siblings, I was left alone.

This is the story of my journey through life as a lone survivor. It is the story of how I have embraced my healing and found purpose for living despite my loss.

Little Bundle of Sorrow

Birth is made out to be the happiest time of your life. But what happens if you have a difficult pregnancy, a traumatic birth, your baby is fussy, or just won’t go to sleep? Are you meant to bond with your baby straight away?

Sometimes, the experience of being a new mum sucks. You’ve been sleep-deprived for weeks or months, and post-natal depression can creep up and take over. If you’ve found yourself struggling to cope, you’re not the only one. Other women have had similar thoughts and feelings to you, no matter how extreme they seem.

The women in this book have experienced postnatal depression and have come out the other side. Their stories will give you hope that there is a way out of the dark hole you are in.

You are not alone.

Lives of the Luberon

Stanislas Yassukovich is an investment banker who spent some 20 years visiting and living with his family in the Luberon, the region of France made famous by the late Peter Mayle's seminal work, A Year in Provence. In his new book, Yassukovich chronicles his experiences, impressions and adventures in this unique corner of La Belle France, together with reminiscences of the fascinating and cosmopolitan characters who reside there permanently or part time. His anecdotal evocation of the great variety of elements that make this region one of the most sought after, in a country rich in holiday destinations, will entertain both those who know the area and those who don't yet. Malika Moine is a Provençal artist who has published several books of her water colours in Marseille. Her illustrations of the villages of the Luberon make the book, and the region, even more irresistible.

Love Is A Losing Game

Always love yourself first, be cautious of giving love too soon, you should make a conscious effort to make sure that you’re getting loyalty, honesty, respect and dedication from the other person before you give in to the emotion of love. Keep in mind love can’t be turned off like a faucet if the other person becomes problematic. How many times have you heard of someone staying in a toxic relationship they obviously shouldn’t be in and the reason is that they love that person? In my opinion, you don’t have to be in love first for a marriage to work. Make sure the other person is worthy of you loving them first.

Marguerite Hepton Memorial Hospital

Based on the author’s own experiences, Marguerite Hepton Memorial Hospital is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl who left school and entered a world of learning and strict discipline, often headed by girls only months older than herself! There she was using equipment and procedures now long forgotten for diseases such as tuberculosis, osteomyelitis, polio and congenital conditions, all of which are now eradicated or treatable.

Her book will appeal to those connected with Thorpe Arch, the hospital, as well as a wider audience of anyone interested in real life nursing and how, off duty, these young people entertained themselves and their patients.

Good care, support, and camaraderie in the midst of changing attitudes, and fears of society towards illness at a time when the world was recovering from World War Two and trying to embrace new technological ideas or discovering new drugs such as antibiotics and streptomycin.

This book should appeal to many people whose lives have reached a reflective stage and anyone interested in history and nursing or educationalists looking for historical facts.

Me and My Shadow

Me and My Shadow – Memoirs of a Cancer Survivor is a brutally honest account of one teenager’s struggle to understand and deal with the most feared diagnosis known to society: cancer.

At 18 years of age, John Walker Pattison was thrust onto a roller coaster ride of emotional turbulence – his innocence cruelly stripped from him; his fate woven into the tapestry of life.

After years of failed chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that ravaged his physical frame and almost destroyed his psychological stability – his parents were told that he would not survive. Yet, today, he is one of the longest surviving cancer patients in the UK.

Eight years after his unexpected recovery, the news that all parents fear, his daughter is diagnosed with terminal leukaemia. Yet like her father, she too would defy the odds and go on to become an international swimmer.

Pattison turned his life full circle and became a cancer nurse specialist at the same hospital that made his diagnosis decades earlier. He prescribes chemotherapy and cares for individuals with the same cancers experienced by both him and his daughter.

Throughout his journey, Pattison’s inspirations were the space rock legends, Hawkwind. He would get to play on stage with his heroes at the Donnington Festival in 2007.

More significantly, he found solace throughout his cancer journey in the history and spirituality of the Lakota Sioux Nation. In 2018, he would spend time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the indigenous people of South Dakota. The same people who, unknowingly, supported him through life's greatest challenge: cancer.

Midlife Crisis

After 20 plus years of marriage you would think that we would have settled into a nice rhythm of life and that big life changes were all past us now! But no. The ride of our lives was unfolding before our eyes, from sports cars and Harley Davidsons to strippers in New Orleans, from shady goings-on within the workplace to a homeless pregnant girl. How can a marriage survive such things? The affair with the Thai massage therapist was a catalyst. All these things changed the course of our lives. What would you have done?

Modern Age Slavery

Modern Age Slavery is a marvellous opportunity for people to find out some of the most hidden, uncensored truths about a seaman’s life on board cruise ships. This poignant memoir will open a sensational perspective about the cruel operational standards of cruise line companies globally. It is an excellent chance to sneak “behind the curtain” and taste the actual bitterness of the seaman’s life, understand the big picture, and realise what the cruise liners are hiding under those glorious, sensational sailing lights. This inspiring book will also help you overcome your most significant life obstacles personally; it will motivate you to become more resilient and search deeper for your inner strengths and undiscovered potentials. After reading some eye-opening chapters, you will be motivated to keep pushing your limits in life to the next level, regardless of any difficult circumstances or adversity. Modern Age Slavery breaks the silence about many irregularities in the cruise ship industry. Behind those glorious and shiny lights of the guest area at the cruise ship, a dark part of the slavery regime still goes unnoticed and is kept away from the public. This book will give you an opportunity to discover the deviant daily life at sea.