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Authors: Susannah Cahalan

Brain on Fire

BOOK: Brain on Fire
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CONTENTS
 

Author’s Note

Preface

PART ONE: CRAZY

Chapter 1:
Bedbug Blues

Chapter 2:
The Girl in the Black Lace Bra

Chapter 3:
Carota

Chapter 4:
The Wrestler

Chapter 5:
Cold Roses

Chapter 6:
America’s Most Wanted

Chapter 7:
On the Road Again

Chapter 8:
Out-of-Body Experience

Chapter 9:
A Touch of Madness

Chapter 10:
Mixed Episodes

Chapter 11:
Keppra

Chapter 12:
The Ruse

Chapter 13:
Buddha

Chapter 14:
Search and Seizure

PART TWO: THE CLOCK

Chapter 15:
The Capgras Delusion

Chapter 16:
Postictal Fury

Chapter 17:
Multiple Personality Disorder

Chapter 18:
Breaking News

Chapter 19:
Big Man

Chapter 20:
The Slope of the Line

Chapter 21:
Death with Interruptions

Chapter 22:
A Beautiful Mess

Chapter 23:
Dr. Najjar

Chapter 24:
IVIG

Chapter 25:
Blue Devil Fit

Chapter 26:
The Clock

Chapter 27:
Brain Biopsy

Chapter 28:
Shadowboxer

Chapter 29:
Dalmau’s Disease

Chapter 30:
Rhubarb

Chapter 31:
The Big Reveal

Chapter 32:
90 Percent

Chapter 33:
Homecoming

Chapter 34:
California Dreamin’

PART THREE: IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME

Chapter 35:
The Videotape

Chapter 36:
Stuffed Animals

Chapter 37:
Wild at Heart

Chapter 38:
Friends

Chapter 39:
Within Normal Limits

Chapter 40:
Umbrella

Chapter 41:
Chronology

Chapter 42:
Infinite Jest

Chapter 43:
NDMA

Chapter 44:
Partial Return

Chapter 45:
The Five W’s

Chapter 46:
Grand Rounds

Chapter 47:
The Exorcist

Chapter 48:
Survivor’s Guilt

Chapter 49:
Hometown Boy Makes Good

Chapter 50:
Ecstatic

Chapter 51:
Flight Risk?

Chapter 52:
Madame X

Chapter 53:
The Purple Lady

Acknowledgments

About Susannah Cahalan

Notes

Dedicated to those without a diagnosis

AUTHOR’S NOTE
 

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to
.


FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

 

B
ecause of the nature of my illness, and its effect on my brain, I remember only flashes of actual events, and brief but vivid hallucinations, from the months in which this story takes place. The vast majority of that time remains blank or capriciously hazy. Because I am physically incapable of remembering that time, writing this book has been an exercise in my comprehending what was lost. Using the skills I’ve learned as a journalist, I’ve made use of the evidence available—hundreds of interviews with doctors, nurses, friends, and family; thousands of pages of medical records; my father’s journal from this period; the hospital notebook that my divorced parents used to communicate with each other; snippets of video footage of me taken by hospital cameras during my stay; and notebooks upon notebooks of recollections, consultations, and impressions—to help me re-create this evasive past. I have changed some names and defining characteristics, but otherwise this is wholly a work of nonfiction, a blend of memoir and reportage.

Even still, I readily admit that I’m an unreliable source. No matter how much research I’ve done, the consciousness that defines me as a person wasn’t present then. Plus, I’m biased. It’s my life, and so at the core of this story is the old problem of journalism, made a hundredfold messier. There are undoubtedly things that I have gotten wrong, mysteries I will never solve, and many moments left forgotten and unwritten. What is left, then, is a journalist’s inquiry into that deepest part of the self—personality, memory, identity—in an attempt to pick up and understand the pieces left behind.

PREFACE
 

A
t first, there’s just darkness and silence
.

“Are my eyes open? Hello?”

I can’t tell if I’m moving my mouth or if there’s even anyone to ask. It’s too dark to see. I blink once, twice, three times. There is a dull foreboding in the pit of my stomach. That, I recognize. My thoughts translate only slowly into language, as if emerging from a pot of molasses. Word by word the questions come: Where am I? Why does my scalp itch? Where is everyone? Then the world around me comes gradually into view, beginning as a pinhole, its diameter steadily expanding. Objects emerge from the murk and sharpen into focus. After a moment I recognize them: TV, curtain, bed.

I know immediately that I need to get out of here. I lurch forward, but something snaps against me. My fingers find a thick mesh vest at my waist holding me to the bed like a—what’s the word?—straitjacket. The vest connects to two cold metal side rails. I wrap my hands around the rails and pull up, but again the straps dig into my chest, yielding only a few inches. There’s an unopened window to my right that looks onto a street. Cars, yellow cars. Taxis. I am in New York. Home.

Before the relief finishes washing over me, though, I see her. The purple lady. She is staring at me.

“Help!” I shout. Her expression never changes, as if I hadn’t said a thing. I shove myself against the straps again.

“Don’t you go doing that,” she croons in a familiar Jamaican accent.

“Sybil?” But it couldn’t be. Sybil was my childhood babysitter. I haven’t seen her since I was a child. Why would she choose today to reenter my life? “Sybil? Where am I?”

“The hospital. You better calm down.” It’s not Sybil.

“It hurts.”

The purple lady moves closer, her breasts brushing against my
face as she bends across me to unhook the restraints, starting on the right and moving to the left. With my arms free, I instinctually raise my right hand to scratch my head. But instead of hair and scalp, I find a cotton hat. I rip it off, suddenly angry, and raise both hands to inspect my head further. I feel rows and rows of plastic wires. I pluck one out—which makes my scalp sting—and lower it to eye level; it’s pink. On my wrist is an orange plastic band. I squint, unable to focus on the words, but after a few seconds, the block letters sharpen: FLIGHT RISK
.

BOOK: Brain on Fire
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