Graphic Medicine

An upbeat, empathetic, and essential guide for young people with diabetes In Diabetes and Me: An Essential Guide for Kids and Parents, Kim Chaloner, who has been teaching award-winning science classes for fifteen years, gives kids the tools they need to take charge of their health and understand what it means to be diagnosed with diabetes. In this graphic guide, she walks four young people through the basics of diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2, revealing . . . * The early signs of diabetes and how doctors can help * What it means to have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes * What the pancreas is and how it works * How to manage the ups and downs of blood sugar levels * Strategies for diet and exercise * How to explain diabetes to friends and family members * And much more! Illustrated by the award-winning artist Nick Bertozzi, Diabetes and Me is an informative, empowering handbook for parents, teachers, and kids looking to learn more about how to handle one of today's most common conditions.

Ripple Effects is a 5-issue series that explores life as a superhero with an invisible disability.In a world that is no stranger to superheroes, George Gibson is invulnerable to physical harm but fights every day to stay alive. Suffering from an acute case of type 1 diabetes, his invincibility is offset by a defective pancreas that must be monitored and treated daily. This incurable disease makes George's body both his greatest strength and his eternal weakness. What sets this series apart is a positive, person-first representation about life with a chronic disease . . . which just so happens to also include superhuman abilities. But, Ripple Effects isn't just a story about a character with an incurable disease. It's also a thrilling and relevant superhero tale that touches on the difficulty of finding a work/life balance, the class struggles and economic inequality experienced by many in our nation, and the desire to help others during trying times.In an effort to help readers better empathize with and understand the difficulties of navigating invisible disabilities, this collected volume contains essays written by individuals with invisible disabilities, each one relating to a specific scene in the series and how it speaks to their own lived experience.

A graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile! Poor Stacey. She just moved to a new town, is still coming to terms with her diabetes, and is facing baby-sitting problems left and right. Fortunately, Stacey has three new friends -- Kristy, Claudia, and Mary Anne. Together they're the BSC -- and they will deal with whatever's thrown their way... even if it's a rival baby-sitting club!

From one of Europe's most important and innovative comics artists comes his greatest masterpiece--a stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work. David B. was born Pierre-François Beauchard in a small town near Orléans, France. He spent an idyllic early childhood playing with the neighborhood kids and, along with his older brother, Jean-Christophe, ganging up on his little sister, Florence. But their lives changed abruptly when Jean-Christophe was struck with epilepsy at age eleven. In search of a cure, their parents dragged the family to acupuncturists and magnetic therapists, to mediums and macrobiotic communes. But every new cure ended in disappointment as Jean-Christophe, after brief periods of remission, would only get worse. Angry at his brother for abandoning him and at all the quacks who offered them false hope, Pierre-François learned to cope by drawing fantastically elaborate battle scenes, creating images that provide a fascinating window into his interior life. An honest and horrifying portrait of the disease and of the pain and fear it sowed in the family, Epileptic is also a moving depiction of one family's intricate history. Through flashbacks, we are introduced to the stories of Pierre-François's grandparents and we relive his grandfathers' experiences in both World Wars. We follow Pierre-François through his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all the while charting his complicated relationship with his brother and Jean-Christophe"s losing battle with epilepsy. Illustrated with beautiful and striking black-and-white images, Epileptic is as astonishing, intimate, and heartbreaking as the best literary memoir.

An Arab-American college student struggles to live with epilepsy in this starkly colored and deeply-cutting graphic novel. Isaac wants nothing more than to be a functional college student--but managing his epilepsy is an exhausting battle to survive. He attempts to maintain a balancing act between his seizure triggers and his day-to-day schedule, but he finds that nothing--not even his medication--seems to work. The doctors won't listen, the schoolwork keeps piling up, his family is in denial about his condition, and his social life falls apart as he feels more and more isolated by his illness. Even with an unexpected new friend by his side, so much is up against him that Isaac is starting to think his epilepsy might be unbeatable. Based on the author's own experiences as an epileptic, Mis(h)adra is a boldly visual depiction of the daily struggles of living with a misunderstood condition in today's hectic and uninformed world.

A triumph of graphic memoir, Parenthesis narrates the author's experience with tumor-related epilepsy--losing herself, and finding herself again. Judith is barely out of her teens when a tumor begins pressing on her brain, ushering in a new world of seizures, memory gaps, and loss of self. Suddenly, the sentence of her normal life has been interrupted by the opening of a parenthesis that may never close. Based on the real experiences of cartoonist lodie Durand, Parenthesis is a gripping testament of struggle, fragility, acceptance, and transformation which was deservedly awarded the Revelation Prize of the Angoulame International Comics Festival.

A story that brings tears to your eyes, in more ways than one. It touches you so much you it makes you want to cross your legs in sympathy - Nev Fountain, writer at Dead Ringers, author of Painkiller Rob Wells has spent much of his adult life coping with chronic pain of different kinds - an embarrassing bowel problem in his early 20s, recurring testicular pain in his late 20s and 30s, and back problems requiring spinal surgery in his early 40s. Consistent through these experiences has been a feeling of being passed from pillar to post by the medical community, seemingly at a loss to explain the cause of these issues, or to find a lasting solution for them. This hilarious and brutally frank graphic memoir tells Rob's story, taking us through emergency surgery for a misdiagnosed twisted testicle, the extremes of weight loss and weight gain, the insides of far too many public toilets, and having to resort to walking with a cane. As Rob's back, sack and crack all became causes for concern so too did his brain, as his recurring problems unsurprisingly left him with depression and agoraphobia. This is the warm and witty story of a man's battle with his own body, and with the medical industry that couldn't quite appreciate the problem. For anyone who has ever felt let down by their doctors, or who has suffered with chronic pain that shows no sign of subsiding, Rob Wells bravely invites you to really get to grips with his balls.

While on her honeymoon, Joy Spencer was taken ill with a violent gastrointestinal episode. Her symptoms persisted long after she returned home, and she was eventually diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Chronically Me: Flushing Out My Life and Times With IBS, A Memoir in Comics, is the story of a woman struggling to live her life and find a cure, or at least some relief from this chronic and decades-long illness. Spencer puts this chronicle of her life with IBS in focus the best way she knows how - with cartoons.Through her wry look at clueless friends and relatives, at doctors with no answers and at treatments with no cures, Spencer hopes that others going through similar circumstances will find some recognition and a little laughter. This honest and funny memoir provides comic relief and comfort for anyone experiencing the frustrations of IBS, or other chronic illnesses.

Funny Misshapen Body is the story of Jeffrey Brown's evolution as a cartoonist, from his youthful obsession with superhero comics to his disillusionment with fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Drawn with Brown's scratchy, spare, trademark style, Funny Misshapen Body resonates with true-to-life observations on love, fear, and ambition. Through his bare bones graphic style, he reveals his most embarrassing personal moments in raw, intimate detail -- including how he survived high school, binge drinking, mild drug experimentation, doomed friendships, and being diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Ultimately coming to terms with his art and identity, Brown describes the ups and downs of his adolescence with understated simplicity, dark humor, and charm.

Poetic musings on illness and the art of getting by from a mini-comics master The Hospital Suite is a landmark work by the celebrated cartoonist and small-press legend John Porcellino--an autobiographical collection detailing his struggles with illness in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1997, John began to have severe stomach pain. He soon found out he needed emergency surgery to remove a benign tumor from his small intestine. In the wake of the surgery, he had numerous health complications that led to a flare-up of his preexisting tendencies toward anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Hospital Suite is Porcellino's response to these experiences--simply told stories drawn in the honest, heart-wrenching style of his much-loved King-Cat mini-comics. His gift for spare yet eloquent candor makes The Hospital Suite an intimate portrayal of one person's experiences that is also intensely relatable. Porcellino's work is lauded for its universality and quiet, clear-eyed contemplation of everyday life. The Hospital Suite is a testimony to this subtle strength, making his struggles with the medical system and its consequences for his mental health accessible and engaging.

Also known as Let Me Eat Your Pancreas, the manga version of the coming-of-age novel that inspired two films! In this deeply moving first-person story, an introverted high school boy finds his classmate's diary--and learns her biggest secret. Yamauchi Sakura is dying from a pancreatic disease and now he is the only one person outside her family to know the truth. The last thing the boy wants is to be her friend, but Sakura's cheerful demeanor and their shared secret draw them together in this heartrending tale of friendship and mortality.