Like Dr. House? Here's a real life case. This was an amazing read that I finished in a couple of hours. I don't usually like non-fiction but I absolutely loved this book and everyone I've told about it has been intrigued as well.
I would write a summary of what it's about, but Susannah herself does a much better job.
One day, I woke up in a strange hospital room, strapped to my bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. My medical records—from a month-long hospital stay of which I have no memory—showed psychosis, violence, and dangerous instability. Yet, only weeks earlier I had been a healthy twenty-four year old, six months into my first serious relationship and beginning a career as a cub reporter at the New York Post.
My memoir Brain on Fire chronicles the swift path of my illness and the lucky, last-minute intervention led by one of the few doctors capable of saving my life. As weeks ticked by and I moved inexplicably from violence to catatonia, $1 million worth of blood tests and brain scans revealed nothing. The exhausted doctors were ready to commit me to the psychiatric ward, in effect condemning me to a lifetime of institutions, or death, until Dr. Souhel Najjar—nicknamed Dr. House—joined my team. He asked me to draw one simple sketch, which became key to diagnosing me with a newly discovered autoimmune disease in which my body was attacking my brain, an illness now thought to be the cause of “demonic possessions” throughout history.
Cool right? This book was fantastic and jarring. The writing is superb, she is a reporter at the New York Post after all. What I really loved about this book was how much it made me think. If one doctor hadn't done one simple test, Susannah would have been sent to a psychiatric ward instead of being where she is today and sharing her story. If she'd had her attack only a few years earlier, she would have been sent to a psychiatric ward. One thing she mentions is that recently, people have been testing people in psychiatric wards and have actually found a percentage with autoimmune diseases. They were in there and they didn't need to be! How scary is that?! How many people slip through the cracks?
In the next twenty years, fifty percent of doctors out in the work force are going to retire. With the costs of college and rising and medical school, the number of students going into the health force is rapidly diminishing and won't be enough to replace the number of doctors retiring. At the same time, health care is on the path to becoming more accessible for all people, raising the number of people who are in the system. There's also so many hospitals that are in need of updates, equipment, who knows what. With all of this going on, how many more people are going to slip through the cracks?
I'm not blaming the doctors, I commend them! They are doing the best they can with the resources they have. There are some amazing, dedicated people out in the workforce today, many of them come lecture in my classes. I can only imagine how many others out there are like them. But, they're getting burnt out. They're being asked to do more and more, all the while having hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that get harder and harder to pay off.
This doesn't just apply to big things like autoimmune diseases. Do you know why pancreatic cancer is so deadly? Because the early symptoms are things like backaches, abdominal pain, fatigue, depression. But there's no way doctors can fully scan everyone who comes in presenting with these symptoms. How many times do we go in, get a prescription, and that's the end of it? These are all the things I mulled over the night after reading Brain on Fire.
Ok, rant over. One other thing I really enjoyed about this book was the look into her life after. I don't want to spoil it but the scene where she's hanging with friends and then something happened really struck me. Things don't just go away overnight.
Read Brain on Fire. Check out Susannah's website. My favorite section was other peoples stories of experiences with the same auto immune disease. There's even book club questions if you want to read this at your next meeting. It's a great book and I highly recommend it!
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