Brain On FIre: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Brain On Fire:

My Month of Madness

by

Susannah Cahalan

Library reading groups provide a couple of things to me.  One is a social group to attend but another is that the books that we read are often books that I would never choose.  Therefore to be involved in the group stretches me to new experiences and new ways of thinking.  A good example of this is the book that is the selection for my local library's reading group in November.   Susannah Cahalan's memoir Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness is not a book that would end up on my wish list.  I listened to it on audio and spent a good bit of the first two thirds of the book rolling my eyes as I drove to and from work.   Her symptoms were so obviously psychotic and as new symptoms showed up any nurse who had ever performed an AIMS assessment  would have asked the docs if they wanted to adjust her medication due to her EPS symptoms.   I envisioned a young woman who had pretty darn good insurance at her job at a New York City newspaper and had parents who both were very well off, admitted to The University Of New York Medical Center and burning through a million dollars because her friends and family could not accept a psychiatric diagnosis.  But well into the second half of the book something happened to open my mind and I was able to make the connection between auto immune disease and behavior.  After that I thought of the progress being made with cancer and our immune system.  Then my brain jumped to dementia and other forms of mental illness and the hope that perhaps as time went on more connections would be made between some psychotic symptoms and various auto immune diseases.   For several months I have been excited about the work that is taking place involving cancer, the immune system and genetic research.  Since reading this book that excitement has been extended from my hopes for the future on the oncology floors to my hopes for future on the psychiatric wards.   Susannah was in extremely fortunate circumstances and the fact that a particularly bright  Syrian immigrant physician was there to connect the proper dots was very lucky.  She realizes that the average person in America who would be admitted to the hospital with her symptoms would not get the same diagnosis but instead would get a one way ticket to a state hospital.   As a result she has re-dedicated her life to getting the word out about her disease.  This book is not an easy one to get through.   A young woman with psychotic behavior is upsetting to visualize.  But it is a book about a cutting edge medical breakthrough that is important to be aware of.   Please follow the links above and enjoy the video that follows to learn more about Anti-NMDA-Receptor auto immune encephalitis.