Search results for ""author mojie crigler""

On August 4, 2004, Jason Crigler was onstage in a New York City nightclub when a blood vessel burst in his brain. The thirty-four-year-old guitarist, a fixture in the downtown music scene who had played with Marshall Crenshaw, Linda Thompson, and John Cale, narrowly survived the bleed. A string of complications that followed—meningitis, seizures, coma—left him immobile and unresponsive, with his doctors saying nothing more could be done. Meanwhile, Jason’s medical insurance quickly hit its lifetime cap, meaning that his policy would no longer pay for his care. Despite such overwhelming circumstances, Jason’s parents, sister, and pregnant wife were sure that he was still there, trapped inside his incapacitated body but able to fight his way back. They mounted an intense course of rehabilitation for him even as they fought a healthcare system that was geared toward defeat. In intimate and unflinching prose, Mojie Crigler chronicles her brother’s harrowing decline and miraculous recovery. Get Me Through Tomorrow is much more than the story of a medical victory amid a broken healthcare system, however. It is about a sister’s metamorphosis from fearful naïf to assertive caregiver. It is about families bridging heartache and divorce to find hope. It is about the deep and enduring relationship between siblings—and the love that transforms them.

Read more less

Powerful stories of the debilitating effects of neglected tropical diseases throughout the world, highlighting the successes and challenges of those fighting to eliminate them.Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect over one billion of the world's poorest people. More than 170,000 people die from NTDs each year, and many more suffer from blindness, disability, disfigurement, cognitive impairment, and stunted growth. Yet NTDs are treatable and preventable, and the annual cost of treatment is incredibly low.In Under the Big Tree, public health leader Ellen Agler and award-winning writer Mojie Crigler tell the moving stories of those struggling with these diseases and the life-saving work that can be—and has been—done to combat NTDs. They introduce readers to people from all walks of life—from car washers in Lake Victoria and surgeons on motorbikes to under-resourced local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and Big Pharma scientists—as they chronicle what has been called the largest public health program in the world. On the one hand, the solutions are simple: deliver medication to people who need it and leverage local systems to offer prevention, treatment, and education. On the other hand, solutions are complex: navigating local and national politics, delivering treatment to some of the most remote, vulnerable communities, and coordinating global and local donors, international NGOs, thousands of health workers, and millions of citizens. Drawing on interviews with major players in the NTD world who share their cutting-edge research and frontline experiences, Under the Big Tree is a moving introduction to the science, the tactics, and the partnerships working to address these terrible diseases that affect the most vulnerable people in the world. With a foreword by Bill Gates, this book fascinates, inspires, and gives readers concrete steps for further engagement.

Read more less