As she struggled through the task, Najjar realized what was wrong: “Your brain is on fire,” he said. None of these tests explained her symptoms.Īs hope of her recovery waned, her doctor, Souhel Najjar, had an idea. A team of doctors racked up $1 million in medical bills conducting blood tests, spinal taps, an MRI, an ECG, a seizure-monitoring test, as well as an experimental treatment that cost $20,000 for a single infusion. Without warning, Cahalan, a healthy, hard-hitting and even-tempered journalist, had degenerated into a violent, irrational psychotic, at one point ripping off her electrodes and running through the hospital hallways.įor a month Cahalan's friends and family watched helplessly as a baffled medical team struggled to uncover what was happening to her, keeping notes in journals to document their experiences and to inform one another of updates. In Brain on Fire, Cahalan recounts her gripping story of suddenly and inexplicably going mad. Just days earlier she had been living a dream life-a 24-year-old rising star reporter at the New York Post, with a serious boyfriend and a loving family. She was restrained to the bed and unable to breathe a word, with a security guard keeping a watchful eye on her. In early 2009 Cahalan woke up in a hospital with electrodes glued to her head.
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