Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

This was an easy but interesting book to read.  It is a memoir by Susannah Cahalan about her experience with a mysterious illness in 2009.

Cahalan was a reporter for the New York Post.  She began having symptoms like similar to the flu, with fevers, nausea, and vomiting.  Then, psychiatric symptoms ensued, like anxiety, mania, paranoia, hallucinations, and insomnia.  Seizures along with language and memory deficits followed later.  Initially, doctors did not know what was wrong.  Various theories and diagnoses were suggested: Capgras syndrome, bipolar disorder, mono, too much partying, psychosis, and encephalitis, among others.

Eventually, Dr. Najjar got her case and finally solved the riddle.  Cahalan had a brain biopsy, which showed the right hemisphere of her brain was inflamed.  This was confirmed with the clock test, where she drew a clock with all the numbers, 1-12, on the right side.  She was unable to perceive the left side of the clock, or the left side of her vision, which is regulated by the right hemisphere of the brain.  She was diagnosed with Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis.  In short, cells from her immune system were attacking the nerve cells in the brain.

While she was sick, Cahalan exhibited a different personality.  She was irritable and foul, even to her family and friends.  We tend to think our personality is stable.  But when circumstances drastically alter, whether by illness or otherwise, who we are can suddenly be thrown into chaos.  Cahalan barely remembers her stay in the hospital.  When she tries to recall what happened, she has difficulty reconciling who she thought she was with who she was during the illness.  Sometimes we don't understand ourselves as fully as we think.

Since Cahalan barely remembers what happened, she used her reporter skills to talk to friends and family and get their accounts to write this memoir.  She also watched hospital footage of herself, as their was a security camera in her room.  The book delves into the effects of her illness not only on herself, but also those around her.  It also explains her recovery and the aftermath.  The medicine behind her illness is explained, but thankfully the science is not too intricate or detailed.  It is simple to follow.  Amazingly, her disease was discovered only about three years prior to her diagnosis.  Who knows how many people suffered from the same condition before her, who went untreated or were left to die or sent to a mental institution?

Here is Cahalan discussing her book and illness: