Title: Brain on Fire Pdf My Month of Madness
In 2009, Susannah Cahalan woke up in a strange hospital room strapped to a bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. Her medical records - from a month-long hospital stay of which she had no memory - reported psychosis, violence, and dangerous instability. Yet, only weeks earlier she had been a healthy, ambitious twenty-four-year-old, six months into her first serious relationship and a sparkling career as a cub reporter.
Susannah's astonishing memoir chronicles the swift path of her illness and the lucky, last-minute intervention led by one of the few doctors capable of saving her life. Weeks ticked by and Susannah moved inexplicably from violence to catatonia. Over one million dollars worth of blood tests and brain scans revealed nothing. The exhausted doctors were ready to commit her to the psychiatric ward, until the celebrated neurologist, Dr. Souhel Najjar, joined her team. With the use of a simple - yet ingenious - test, he was able to make a lifesaving diagnosis - revealing a newly discovered autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks the brain.
With sharp reporting drawn from hospital records, scientific research, and interviews with doctors and family, Brain on Fire is a crackling mystery and an unflinching, gripping personal story that marks the debut of an extraordinary writer.
Don't miss this one. Susannah Cahalan’s book should be required reading for every med school student, clinical psych major and any other front line profession (like teachers) who may encounter – not just NDMA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis – but any other rare disease that defies accurate diagnosis and treatment. At one level this book is a dire warning about the frequency with which symptomology is often forced into pre-conceived categories by medical professionals out of the toxic combination of arrogance, laziness and ignorance, and when those categories don’t match up precisely, how common the search for accurate diagnosis is sacrificed to a diagnosis that ends in NOS – Not Otherwise Specified. Cahalan makes the point that without a relentless physician, she herself would probably be now institutionalized or dead. She stresses that her “cure” represents a likely minority of patients who will never be properly diagnosed or treated and toward the end of the book she takes “Survivor Guilt” head on. Her unflinching self revelations are not entirely what make this account so worthwhile, though she writes without a shred of self pity or maudlin retrospection, (like the very best journalists often do). One of the most compelling features of this memoir is the brilliantly subtle deconstruction of human experience into all the elements - emotion, behavior, and thought, and how significant, even critical to “health” the integration of these functions is. It is a stunning reflection on the very notion of “self” and a remarkably honest disclosure about family and human relationships and the frailty of both. Stylistically the book bears the unmistakable mark of an accomplished journalist, and, If you are a fan of Cheryl Strayed, John Krakauer and Sebastian Junger you will love this book. Unlike Strayed, Krakauer and Junger however, whose "places" were the Pacific Crest, the Alaskan wilderness or the mountains of Afghanistan respectively, Cahalan's journey is the unfathomable complexity of human biology and psychology. It is perhaps the most daunting terrain to visit let alone report on. She does it very well."Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness" should be ... "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness" should be required reading for everyone in the health care profession- especially neurologists. This past April, 2017, my 18 year old granddaughter, Alysa, after having had seizures, spent 2 weeks in the hospital; MRI's, CT-scans, EEGs and blood work came back normal. Slowly, she became unable to read, to eat, to speak. Slowly, she "descended into madness", becoming violent and hallucinating. In the very beginning of her illness, my daughter-in-law, Gretchen, through research, texted me to have the doctors consider "anti-NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis". At the same time, my sister-in-law, Downey, wrote to tell me of this book. Nope. None of the doctors at the first hospital had a clue about it. On April 14th, Alysa was transported to Chapel Hill, NC Neuroscience Hospital. (I requested the information about the anti NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis be forwarded with her records) One month before Alysa's illness, a young woman was the first to be diagnosed with this disease at Chapel Hill. Working with The Mayo Clinic, doctors at CH acquired an infusion- which almost immediately reversed Alysa's psychotic symptoms! She is still recovering and will need more infusions and therapy. Susannah's book has not only given us insight into what was a horrific nightmare for our family, it has also validated getting a second (third or fourth) opinion when a patient's condition is not improving. Thank you, Susannah! I hope you have made a complete recovery by now.
Tags: B009VSFJ6C pdf,Brain on Fire pdf,My Month of Madness pdf,,Susannah Cahalan, Heather Henderson, a division of Recorded Books HighBridge,Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness,HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books,B009VSFJ6C
0 Response to "Brain on Fire Free Pdf"
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.