Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu’s rousing memoir about being both profoundly disabled and profoundly successful without trading one for the other.
 
Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his physical mobility. He was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music and reruns of The Bold and the Beautiful and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished, and he later began traveling to speak to audiences about disability justice. Ndopu was thrilled when he’s accepted into one of the world’s most prestigious schools, Oxford University, on a full scholarship, he but soon learns that it’s not just the medical community he must thwart—it’s the educational one too.

Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw follows Ndopu as he scales the mountain of success only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting on the other side. Ndopu, just like his peers, must juggle the everyday life of a student—making it to class on time and managing a thriving social life, all while campaigning to become student body president. Privately, however, Ndopu faces obstacles that are all too familiar to people with disabilities yet remain unnoticed by the masses. With the revolving door of government care aides and the hefty bill attached to it, and a lack of adequate support from the school system, Ndopu struggles to feel like he belongs. Determined to succeed, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige. But as the pressure mounts, Ndopu must find his stride or collapse under the crushing weight of ableism.

Primed with a razor-sharp narrative, this book is Ndopu’s remarkable journey to resist being sidelined by ableism and open the door of inclusion for others. Written with his one good finger, Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw delivers a blaring clarion call to disabled achievers and other underdogs everywhere to stop climbing mountains and start moving them instead.