Summary of Brain on Fire: by Susannah Cahalan | Includes Analysis

By Instaread Summaries

Summary of Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan | Includes Analysis

 

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In her memoir, Brain on Fire: My Year of Madness, Susannah Cahalan recounts her battle with a rare, debilitating autoimmune disease that led to psychosis and,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683780694

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Summary

In her memoir, Brain on Fire: My Year of Madness, Susannah Cahalan recounts her battle with a rare, debilitating autoimmune disease that led to psychosis and, eventually, catatonia. Previously healthy, Susannah never guessed that one day she would wake up in the hospital with almost no recollection of her battle with a disease that threatened not only her sanity but her life. With the help of one particularly talented doctor, Susannah eventually obtained a diagnosis and began the long road to recovery. But first, she faced a terrifying descent into madness.

Everything was going well for 24-year-old Susannah. She was a reporter at the New York Post. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Stephen, was getting serious. But in early 2009, she started to experience strange symptoms. First, when Susannah found what looked like a bug bite on her arm, she became convinced that bedbugs had infested her Manhattan apartment. Not long after, she became paranoid that Stephen was cheating on her. An onslaught of new symptoms followed: headaches, nausea, and tingling and numbness in her limbs.

The first doctor whom Susannah called was her gynecologist. She worried that maybe her new birth control was causing the strange symptoms. Her gynecologist referred her to a neurologist, Dr. Bailey. But when the MRI came back normal, the doctors did not know what to tell Susannah. They hypothesized that she had mono or some other virus.

Somewhat relieved, Susannah tried to get back to