This book, Brain on fire: My Month of Madness, is about the author Susannah Cahalan, a young woman who has a disease which no doctor could figure out and her journey to find a diagnosis. Susannah had many symptoms which ended up fundamentally killing her brain. Susannah gets put in a hospital after having another seizure and was labeled violent, psychotic, and a flight risk. Susannah had to stay in the hospital twenty-eight days before being released with the diagnosis, Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Susannah has been treated and officially cured, but still struggling with memory loss,using her experience to help others. Susannahs purpose for writing the book is to inform readers about Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. I am confident this…
In Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, the author is a up and coming New York Post reporter. She was focused on her career, her boyfriend, her family, her friends, and her cat. At least, she was focused until she mysteriously got sick one day with no noticeable cause except a possible bedbug bite. After consulting her friends and boyfriend, Susannah decided to go to a neurologist. The neurologist was convinced that nothing is wrong except alcohol consumption. However, after numerous exams and consultations, Susannah started to have seizures. Her boyfriend rushed her to the hospital, where she was later discharged.…
In May of 1967, their second child was born, a healthy baby girl, named Alandra, or “Landy” for short. Tressa had become close friends with Sug’s cousin’s wife, Linda. Linda had a three year old daughter named Joy who was deaf. Tressa noticed some of the same mannerisms between the two young girls and shortly after started becoming suspicious and considering the possibility of her own daughter’s deafness. She knew that during Linda’s pregnancy she had been exposed to the measles and also recalled the same ailment during her own and considered that a cause for concern. She told many people of her suspicions of her daughter being deaf including family and Landy’s pediatrician and everyone dismissed her in the same way. The doctor told her to come back in a year if she still had the same suspicions.…
Generalized seizures are more dramatic and are the most common type of seizures today. The “grand-mal” seizure is the most common type of generalized seizure that many people have. The patient can have many symptoms but the most common symptoms would be he/she loses consciousness and from there they collapse. The body will start to stiffen which this phase is called the “tonic” phase and lasts up to 30-60 seconds, following that the person will start to jerk which is another 30-60…
Thomas and Louise started to take Lynn to their doctor Dr. Bales. Even though the parents expressed their concerns, Dr. Bales said that Lynn was too young to do any testing on and that she seemed perfectly normal and could not even find anything wrong with her ears. The parents were still concerned so Dr. Bales suggested that they see a specialist, however this was after many anxious and scary appointments where the parents could not find out what was wrong with their daughter. What made this even more frightening for Thomas and Louise was that while they were trying to teach Lynn to speak and form words she forms everything…
Epilepsy is common and each presentation to AED represents a “failure” in control. Anecdotally it is known that care of epilepsy is variable and that there are many patients who are unknown to the specialists and who have not had the opportunity to be optimally controlled. Whilst there are many research studies in epilepsy that have summarised much of the evidence regarding treatment options for patients, little is known about the organisation and delivery of epilepsy care across the UK.…
In the description of the symptoms that were manifested by Brent which include loss of consciousness, violent spasms and stiffening with the upper extremities flexed and the lower extremities extended, he had a generalized tonic-clonic seizure. According to Burn, et al. (2013), the generalized tonic-clonic seizure may last 5 to 30 second and lapses of consciousness. Although the cause of the seizure may still remain unknown, but many researchers believed that there are certain aspects of brain injury may cause a person to develop this type of disorder. Since Brent involved in a motor vehicle accident in which he experienced a closed head injury that may cause him to develop a seizure on his life later. In post-seizure, it is important to assess all the activity that had happened to the person who had the seizure. In the case, the NP need to assess Brent’s seizure activities by asking Brent’s teacher who was observed her student during the…
Nao Kao and Foua did not respond well to this. Their distrust of authority figures made them think that these drugs were not going to help their daughter. That was not the only reason they did not follow the regimen though, the language and cultural barrier also had a lot to do with it. Lia’s parents decided when they wanted to give her medicine and even doubled up on some very dangerous medications. This led to multiple hospitalizations and Lia’s condition getting steadily worse.…
Petit mal seizures- are a brief loss of consciousness that usually lasts a few seconds. These seizures begin and end abruptly and may occur several times a day. Other symptoms include lip smacking, eye fluttering and chewing motions. Petit mal seizures are more common in children than in adults. Many children outgrow them, but some children develop other types of seizures. Petit mal seizures are known as absence seizures.…
Lia’s most apparent objective is her obsessive need to lose weight and be thin. Lia finds sneaky ways to hide the disorder from her family. She manipulates the people around her and shuts them out when they attempt to help. Lia omits…
Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which affects the nervous system and is also known as a seizure disorder. It is normally diagnosed after a person has had two or more seizures that weren 't caused by a known medical condition like extremely low blood sugar or alcohol withdrawal. The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury or a family tendency but most of the time it unfortunately unknown. “Epilepsy”, the word itself, does not indicate anything about the cause of the person 's seizures, what type they are or how severe they can or may be. Epilepsy is the condition of recurrent spontaneous seizures arising from abnormal electrical activity within the brain. Epileptogenesis…
Although epilepsy tends to have an effect on men much more than women, women with epilepsy tend to experience seizures more often than men and women's seizures are expected to be uncontrolled. Epilepsy is a disorder of which you have unprovoked seizures. The scientist from my article established that when epileptic animal models were given ethinyl estradiol, they not only had more frequent seizures, but the seizures were more likely to be uncontrolled. Reddy stated, “Controlled seizures don't tend to leave lasting damage, but uncontrolled seizures originate deeper in the brain." Uncontrolled seizures can cause brain injury, such as nerve cell death. These scientists surveyed women with epilepsy and established that those using birth control…
Epilepsy is a group of related disorders characterized by a tendency for recurring seizures. There are different types of epilepsy and seizures. Epilepsy drugs are prescribed to control seizures, and rarely surgery is necessary if medications are ineffective. Epilepsy is a disorder of the brain's electrical system. Abnormal electrical impulses cause brief changes in movement, behavior, sensation, or awareness.…
Linda’s description of her birth present a setting that is harsh and unpleasant. Born with a deformity at birth caused by her twin who crushed her while in the womb, neglected and left to die by her birth mother she grew to be unattached to things to avoid pain. “Mrs. Lasher I have something important to say. Your other child has a congenital deformity and may die. Shall we use extraordinary means to salvage it? She looked at the doctor with utter incomprehension at first, then cried, “NO!”. (Erdrich Page 1)…
Roughly 1 in 26 people in America have epilepsy, but I never knew or cared until February 5th 2015. At the age of fifteen I hadn’t had a great life with my parents getting a divorce when I was eight; my older cousin dying in the tornado when i was 12; and my best friend dying at age fourteen. I also had a loving family that supported me through everything. Sometimes having a loving family doesn't keep away the bad things they try to protect use from. The evil that hit me was epilepsy and it hit my like an oncoming freight train.…