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
Later that day, a dermatologist conducts a full body exam to check for melanoma on Susannah. The dermatologist finds nothing, and in the evening, nurses wheel Susannah to the radiology department to perform an ultrasound to look for a teratoma. Susannah hallucinates that she's finding out the gender of her child, and is so upset afterwards that she refuses to allow them to perform a transvaginal one. From the first, however, they discover no teratoma.
Susannah's doctors are now truly looking at her as a whole being, both physical and psychological. The full-body exam is a very literal representation of looking at patients as entire people, not disparate parts.
Themes
The next morning, Dr. Najjar arrives to explain the treatment plan to Susannah and her parents. He decides to use a three-pronged treatment of steroids to reduce inflammation; IVIG to neutralize the rogue antibodies; and a treatment of plasmapheresis, a form of blood filtration, to flush the antibodies out. Dr. Najjar explains that Susannah should likely return to 90% of her former self, and could go home the next day. Dr. Russo notes later that Susannah seems brighter and her speech seems improved.
By persisting in describing her treatment and prognosis in language that is easy to understand, Cahalan seeks to make it easier for a reader to learn about the disease and apply what they learn to their own situation. Essentially, she seeks to give them the language that her diagnosis offered to her.
Themes
The next morning, Mom, Dad, Allen, Stephen, and one of Susannah's college friends, Lindsey, collect Susannah's belongings and help Susannah out of her room. They pass a sign at the elevators that Dad had posted the night before, thanking the staff of the epilepsy floor for caring for Susannah.
Lindsey's visit shows once again the necessity for love and community during this trying time. Mom and Dad are now seemingly willing to lean on more people to help them help Susannah.
Themes
Susannah tells the reader that despite the 4% chance that she'll die, her parents are hopeful that Dr. Najjar's plan will work. In addition to the three-pronged treatment, Susannah will see Dr. Najjar weekly, get a PET scan (a type of scan that shows the body in the process of functioning and will allow the doctors to measure progress), and take seven other drugs to manage her other symptoms and side effects of the treatment.
Treatment and recovery are certainly not easy, and by using language that makes her treatment sound arduous and intense, Cahalan makes this exceptionally clear. This continues to show that medicine isn't magic; it's hard work, takes time, and there's a lot it can't do.
Themes
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As Allen drives everyone back to New Jersey, Susannah's old favorite karaoke song comes on the radio. Susannah begins awkwardly bopping her head out of rhythm and swinging her elbows. Lindsey can't tell if Susannah is dancing or having a seizure.
Lindsey's confusion illustrates that there's still a major disconnect between the inner and outer Susannahs—and in this instance, Cahalan cannot enlighten the reader as to what exactly was going on here, given that she doesn't remember.
Themes
