Brain On Fire: Introduction

The book I have chosen to use for this project is called Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan. I chose this book because, as a pre-nursing major, I am very interested in anything medical or health related. Brain on Fire is Cahalan's account of the affliction of and recovery from a rare autoimmune disease that, until her case became known, was foreign to the medical and scientific realm. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that before Cahalan's case, only a handful of cases diagnosing the rare disease had ever been recorded because the disease is easy to misdiagnose due to many signs and symptoms similar to those of certain mental illnesses. In response to her misdiagnosis, Cahalan begs one of the most trying questions raised in her book: How many people are misdiagnosed and left to the care of mental institutions when what they really suffer from is much more malignant, although often curable?