Brain on Fire: My Month of madness

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

To read a disturbing, outlandish story is one thing: but to realize it is a nonfiction, authentic account, the story categorizes towards much more of a nightmare.

Brain on Fire follows New York Post journalist Susanna Calahan. Her career is stable, her relationship is nurturing, and her mental health is coherent and rational. On paper, it seems as though the young reporter is flourishing. While she believes balancing a heavy workload is at the forefront of her problems, it is unbeknownst to her that her body is shutting down on itself.

That is until her first recognizable seizure: the earliest pragmatic sign to her plummeting wellbeing. Calahan wakes up in a hospital bed, unable to recollect her loss of consciousness.

Following her episode, Calahan was evaluated by multiple doctors with no clear diagnosis toward the problem. She layed cuffed to the bed, feeling trapped in her own body, and suffocated by her own mind. Along with the violent seizures, she began to suffer frequent hallucinations, and paranoid hysteria.

This hysteria raised apprehensions to her friends and family. With her health plunging rapidly, she fell unrecognizable to family, friends, her boyfriend Stephen, and even herself.

Throughout the novel, pieced recollections of her stays in the hospital redraft Calahans nightmarish experience. With each turn of page, readers delve into the mind of ailed Calahan.

Then, a miracle. A doctor recognized for his successes with medical mysteries, Dr. Najarr was called into her case.

Najarr gave Calahan a “clock test” in which he asked her to draw and number a clock. Calahan, after a good deal of hesitation drew the clock- with all numbers on the right hand side. The twelve where the six should be. After 28 days of meticulous testings, and her family persistence for diagnosis, Calahan finds out she battles a rare autoimmune disease that takes over her body-and brain- at an accelerating rate: Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Alongside Najarr was Dalmau, a doctor specializing with brain inflammation and schizophrenia patients.

“Brain on Fire” Dalmau described it to Calahan and her parents.

Thus ensued the road to recovery. A long, spindling road plagued with many dead ends, but one towards recovery nonetheless.

Conclusion;

Typically, I tend to stay away from nonfiction. This book has proved all of my past afflictions to be stubborn falsities that I no longer feel obligated subject myself. I've learned that nonfiction writing has a more unguarded and thus emotion invoking nature. To know Calahans story was real was something synonymous to nonfiction. With each turn of page, I was eager to delve deeper into the chronicles of Calahans journey from sickness to recovery. Only 288 pages, but nonetheless proven extraordinarily influential. Calahan has broken barriers for what it means to be vulnerable and her brutal honesty is noble. I definitely recommend this fascinating novel, not only for its happy ending, but for the stronghold connection readers form with Calahan.