The Cascade Effect: A Biologist Shares His Faith and His Story Living with Wilson's Disease Free download The Cascade Effect: A Biologist Shares His Faith and His Story Living with Wilson's Disease from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
Présentation de l'éditeur
This is the story of a man's fight for life, battling psychotic episodes resulting from a rare genetic disease. Dendy, a bright, energetic young man, found himself suffering from neurological tremors and psychosis, the result of a genetic disease that had concealed itself during the first two and a half decades of his life. The neurological and psychological manifestations of Wilson's disease were the result of years of toxic copper buildup in the basal ganglia of the brain. Additionally, the toxic levels of copper caused stage IV cirrhosis of his liver. In his book, Dendy recounts the numerous times in his life in which angels have delivered him. And through these happenings, this biologist and Missionary Baptist preacher says his faith has been strengthened bringing him closer and closer to his Creator.
Biographie de l'auteur
W. Mark Dendy is a marine biologist, adjunct professor of biology and natural resource management, journalist, and filmmaker. He holds a B.S. in biological sciences, and an M.S. in life sciences.
Books with free ebook downloads available The Cascade Effect: A Biologist Shares His Faith and His Story Living with Wilson's Disease (An inherited disorder of copper metabolism) (English Edition) [Format Kindle]
The author of this brief memoir escorts the reader through key events in his transformation from prodigal son to biologist while beating poor odds of surviving a serious disease. The memoir has elements of confession and testimony, and Dendy's reaffirmation of faith and the importance of God in his life is a central theme. The back cover bio reveals that Dendy is also a Baptist preacher.
Dendy's memoir focuses primarily on his adolescence engaged with girls, sports, and cars, and his young adulthood, when he started to drift between school, the Navy, and various jobs as he became increasingly moody and unable to focus. He details several years of drifting across the United States, and his return home at age 27 to the acceptance of his family. His health deterioriated rapidly after his return. In addition to increased moodiness, he developed a tremor and difficulty walking. He also lost a great deal of weight. During this time, Dendy reaffirmed his faith in God, and through the help of neurologists at the National Institutes of Health, obtained first a diagnosis and then treatment for a rare genetic disorder that was causing his symptoms. This disorder, Wilson's disease, prevents removal of copper from the body, and the copper then builds up, causing a cascade of liver, muscle, and neurological damage.
Because the work is short and Dendy focuses heavily on faith, it lacks great depth in terms of insight to many aspects of his behavior and decisions, making it less emotionally involving than, for example, Prickly Cactus, a memoir about a woman with a different chronic disease. However, in addition to educating the public about this rare disease, Dendy has done a service to people facing rare or chronic diseases of any kind, as well as the depression that often accompanies them. He explains often intensely private aspects of his own journey in dealing with his symptoms and diagnosis and finding support in family and faith. As he says at one point, "Many angels were watching out for me."
Par Marta
- Publié sur Amazon.com
It probably truly started to show in his early twenties, when Mark Dendy would have wild bi-polar-esque mood swings from pleasant and happy to suicidal depression. But it wasn't until his late twenties, when he developed a severe tremor, that he began studiously looking for a medical cause to his issues. Several doctors and misdiagnoses later, Dendy was eventually determined to have Wilson's Disease, a rare inherited genetic disorder in which the body cannot properly metabolize dietary copper. It was this toxic copper build-up in his body that was causing the mood swings, the tremors, the numbness in part of his body. The disease could be verified by blood work and even seen visually as a copper-colored ring around the iris of the eye. After his diagnosis, Dendy agreed to undergo a series of testing to help his doctors better understand this uncommon disease, which turns out to be somewhat more prevalent than first believed. Different medications have helped him control his disorder, and he eats a low-copper diet. Now, nearly thirty years later, Dendy is doing better than his doctors had ever initially hoped for! "The Cascade Effect" is his story, chronicling his wild youth through diagnosis, through treatments and therapy, through today, when he is still actively working to help the medical community understand this disease.
The workings of the human body never cease to amaze me! It's astounding how a simple genetic mutation can cause such a dangerous disorder, one that can lay seemingly dormant for years or even most of a person's life. I had never heard of Wilson's Disease before picking up "The Cascade Effect," but I understand how buildups of vital trace minerals can be dangerous. I admire Dendy's courage in allowing doctors to study this disease's effects on him personally, and especially his drive to someday donate his body to the further study of this disorder. One cannot help but hope that by telling this story, he will help at least a few people either determine the cause of their own maladies or provide support to someone newly diagnosed. This book is a good quick read and, despite its strong religious overtones, a fascinating story of coping with the peculiarities of the human body.
Par Holly Scudero
- Publié sur Amazon.com