"There was very fine, an elegant pain, hardly a pain at all, like the swift and fleeting burn of a drop of hot candle wax...Then the blood welled up and began to distort the pure, stark edges of my delicately wrought wound.
"The chaos in my head spun itself into a silk of silence. I had distilled myself to the immediacy of hand, blade, blood, flesh."
There are an estimated two to three million "cutters" in America, but experts warn that,

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Mattie J. T. Stepanek lived and died a child, but he had the spirit of a giant. Affected by a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease, Mattie lived almost fourteen years but in that time became a poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and a prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Before his death in June 2004, his five volumes of Heartsongs poetry sold more than a million copies. Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait Through...

"Two sisters come together and reevaluate their priorities when one sister receives a terminal diagnosis."-- Two sisters work to heal lingering childhood wounds and seek a new balance in work, family, marriage, and love when one receives a diagnosis that sets the clock ticking. Determined to save Sherri's life, Kristen drops everything to guide her sister on the harrowing cancer treatment journey. When she's unable to balance the strain of caring...

Hovering between life and death, Charlotte Grey comes back to Earth as a guardian angel to James Kane, the man who broke her heart, and uses this opportunity as a second chance to really start living--and have fund doing it.

"A poignant and funny tale of a woman whose best friend, Smidge, wants her to take over Smidge's family after Smidge dies of cancer"--

No one expected this journey. Jessica Carmel was born with a severe congenital heart condition. At four days old, her parents learned she would need heart surgery. They had no idea that her future held multiple surgeries and even more unexpected challenges. Fast-forward sixteen years. As Jessica sat in her cardiologist's office for a routine checkup, he told her and her mom that there was nothing more he could do for her. Jessica needed a heart transplant....

Jenny Peterson is a breast cancer survivor. Her long road through cancer treatment was hard, emotional and often deeply depressing. The one thing that pulled her out of the darkness was her desire to be able to garden again. Peterson credits her garden with clearing her mental fog and overcoming her depression, physical limitations and painches The Cancer Survivors Garden Companion explores the therapeutic benefits of this vital zearth connection.y...

Dolores Mendoza is not thriving. She was recently diagnosed with a chronic bladder condition called interstitial cystitis. The painful disease isn’t life threatening, but it is threatening to ruin her life.Just when things seem hopeless, Dolores meets someone poised to change her fate. Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones is glamorous, autistic, and homeschooled against her will by her overprotective mother. After a rocky start, the girls form a tentative...

Sunny continues to grapple with the fact that her mother is dying of cancer.

From Revlon spokesmodel to film actress to one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People," Karen Duffy was living the life most of us only dream of. Then her whirlwind life of celebrity parties came to an abrupt, grinding halt when she was stricken with a serious illness in one of its rarest forms: sarcoidosis of the central nervous system. Duffy soon realized that the only way for her to survive was not to take the disease too seriously. Instead...