Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Illness
Storytelling, Memory, and Emotion
Love and Family
Responsibility and the Medical System
Summary
Analysis
Two days after the biopsy, a speech pathologist, Karen Gendal, arrives to assess Susannah's ability to speak and convey ideas. Susannah cannot answer any open-ended questions, and tells Gendal that she can't get her ideas out of her head. Gendal notes that Susannah is lethargic and unemotional, and Susannah struggles with the writing tests. Gendal writes in her chart that Susannah's communication functions are absolutely not what they were when she was working as a journalist.
These tests do as much to actually test Susannah herself as they do to test just how dramatically the medical system and community has failed her. As Cahalan will mention later, the disease is relatively easy to diagnose and treat, and these tests only indicate just how ill Susannah became before receiving a diagnosis.
Themes
The next day, Dr. Morrison, a neuropsychologist, comes to test Susannah's cognitive function and intelligence. Susannah performs poorly on tests that measure her working memory, word retrieval, and processing speed. When she asks Susannah to arrange blocks as shown in a picture, Susannah struggles. It's clear that Susannah is aware that she's not functioning as well as she used to, and Dr. Morrison recommends cognitive therapy.
