{"id":15186,"date":"2020-09-15T00:36:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T04:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=15186"},"modified":"2020-10-01T12:34:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T16:34:21","slug":"susannah-cahalan-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/susannah-cahalan-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Susannah Cahalan: Diagnosis and Medical Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What was Susannah Cahalan’s diagnosis in Brain on Fire<\/em>? How did doctors figure it out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susannah Cahalan’s diagnosis was not easy to reach. It was a long struggle but they eventually doctors diagnosed her with anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about Susannah Cahalan, diagnosis efforts, and what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Mysterious Illness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Susannah awakes in the emergency room, Stephen by her side. When she sees a homeless man vomiting a few feet away and a bloody man handcuffed to a gurney, surrounded by police officers, she demands to be moved to another room. The doctor agrees, and she\u2019s filled with a triumphant sense of power. En route to her new room, she inexplicably screams that she\u2019s going to sue the MRI technician for flirting with her. Looking back, Susannah views this as the moment when her personality begins to evaporate as she succumbs to the disease.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young resident discharges Susannah from the hospital. They\u2019ve already done a CT scan, blood test, and basic neurological exam, and they can do nothing more for her. Stephen objects, but the resident tells him that sometimes seizures happen once and never return. Nevertheless, he tells Susannah to see a neurologist the next day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the tools to give Susannah Cahalan a diagnosis aren’t working. Susannah\u2019s bloodwork and autoimmune tests come back negative. Her MRIs and CT scans are clean. Forced by this evidence to rule out most of the diagnoses they had in mind, Susannah\u2019s doctors begin to wonder whether they\u2019ll actually be able to figure out what\u2019s wrong with her. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the situation continues to go downhill. Susannah\u2019s chewing motions, staring episodes, and zombie arm movements become more frequent, even as every test comes back negative. Susannah\u2019s family secretly begins to wonder whether she really will make a recovery.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susannah Cahalan: Diagnosis at Last<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Najjar begins a series of bedside tests to give Susannah Cahalan a diagnosis. Susannah responds monosyllabically, with a significant lisp. Her reflexes are bad, her pupils don\u2019t constrict properly, and she can\u2019t touch her hand to her nose. She walks stiffly, with delays between steps, angling toward her left side. He concludes that she\u2019s hellishly catatonic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then he has an idea: the clock test. Ripping a sheet of paper from his notebook, he hands it to Susannah and asks her to draw a clock. At first, Susannah can\u2019t draw a circle and has to ask for another sheet of paper. She draws a circle and outlines it three times. Then Najjar asks her to fill in the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susannah desperately tries to remember what a clock looks like. She begins writing the numbers down, getting stuck on one, drawing another several times. Finally, she gets them all filled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sight of Susannah\u2019s clock makes Najjar so ecstatic that he nearly applauds. Susannah\u2019s parents stare at him in confusion: Susannah has squished all the numbers into the right side of the circle. The left side is completely blank. Najjar explains to them that Susannah\u2019s test provides concrete evidence that the right side of her brain is inflamed. Susannah Cahalan’s diagnosis is confirmed, finally. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was Susannah Cahalan’s diagnosis in Brain on Fire? How did doctors figure it out? Susannah Cahalan’s diagnosis was not easy to reach. It was a long struggle but they eventually doctors diagnosed her with anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis. Read more about Susannah Cahalan, diagnosis efforts, and what happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,16],"tags":[130],"class_list":["post-15186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-health","tag-brain-on-fire","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nSusannah Cahalan: Diagnosis and Medical Mystery - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Susannah Cahalan's diagnosis process was long and challenging. 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