It caught the eye of actress Charlize Theron, who has her own company, Denver and Delilah Productions, and was made into the film starring 19-year-old Moretz last year.
Later, she became catatonic. [6] Since then, a better understanding of the disease and its symptoms has resulted in more frequent diagnosis and treatment. She stopped eating, stopped sleeping, and had hallucinations, including believing that her father murdered her stepmother, according to the Post. Just a week earlier, she wrote a piece on Maine lobsters, and her author page on the Post's website shows scores of articles she's written. Your California Privacy Rights
But she wasn't just returning to the paper to address her past; she's been consistently writing articles for the Post for years. He asked her to draw a clock on a piece of paper, and when she did, she put all 12 of the numbers on the right side of the clock face, leaving the left side blank, according to NPR.
We've received your submission. Left untreated, the condition could have been fatal since victims can suffer severe cognitive damage, fall into a coma and die. While excited by the glitz and glamour, he is most overwhelmed by the fact that his relatively obscure field of neurology has grabbed the spotlight. Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan At 24, Susannah Cahalan had a great life: a job as a reporter at the New York Post, a new relationship with a musician and a happy family life.
“She would go into these intense periods of psychosis or catatonia with this deep, physical portrayal, and then cut back to this fun-loving 19-year-old person, joking around and so charming and engaging.”. Brain on Fire is a medical mystery drama starring Chlöe Grace Moretz, and it's about the very real and extremely rare disorder that struck journalist Susannah Cahalan when … It was a re-enactment of the frightening real-life convulsions Stephen Grywalski witnessed when his then-24-year-old girlfriend was unknowingly battling a rare neurological disease called autoimmune encephalitis. “I was extremely lucky and have so much gratitude toward Dr. Najjar,” says Cahalan, who painstakingly pieced together what happened by interviewing her family and medical staff once she was treated with steroids and blood transfusions. Do Not Sell My Personal Information, Your California Privacy Rights
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Interestingly, real-life video of Cahalan’s stay in the hospital epilepsy ward was interwoven with scenes featuring Moretz.
All rights reserved. Her symptoms had previously been wrongly chalked up first to mono, then alcohol withdrawal (she drank just two glasses of wine per night, but one inattentive doctor wrote two bottles of wine in her notes), and then the psychiatric disorder schizophrenia. Despite the seriousness of the subject, Cahalan still managed to have fun during the filming in Canada. The couple was watching the unsettling scene in which Chloë Grace Moretz — the young actress who plays Cahalan in the film, which is based on her best-selling memoir — has an unexplained seizure in the middle of the night. When Cahalan was struck by her illness in 2009, she was one year into her job as a New York Post reporter. Susannah Cahalan and Stephen Grywalski on their wedding day in 2015. Seeing the footage of herself bothers Cahalan less now that she’s watched it so many times, for her book and for the movie. [8], In May 2014, it was announced that the book was being adapted into a film of the same name starring Chloë Grace Moretz[9] and produced by Cahalan and Charlize Theron. 46,740, © 2020 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved The illness is caused when a person's antibodies, which are produced by the immune system to fight infections, begin attacking the NMDA receptors in the brain.
[12], "Brain on Fire: Susannah Cahalan's Medical Mystery", "Under Attack: One Woman's Terrifying Battle With an Auto-Immune Disease", "Brain on Fire: An Interview With Susannah Cahalan on Anti–NMDA Receptor Autoimmune Encephalitis", "Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan - review", "Chloe Grace Moretz to Star in 'Brain on Fire' (Exclusive)", "Dakota Fanning to star in Charlize Theron's 'Brain On Fire, "Dakota Fanning to star in Brain On Fire adaptation", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brain_on_Fire&oldid=972934388, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 14 August 2020, at 14:55. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is a 2012 New York Times best-selling autobiography by New York Post writer Susannah Cahalan.The book details Cahalan's struggle with a rare form of encephalitis and her recovery.
“My number-one priority has been raising awareness.”. According to the Post, Najjar estimates that 90 percent of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis cases go undiagnosed, meaning those patients will ultimately be killed by their bodies attacking their own brains. She then became paranoid and delusional, believing her doctors were conspiring against her and that people on TV were talking about her. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! 12:56. Cahalan’s goal is to see every hospital offer the test to those with first-time psychosis.
It's a horrifying way to go, but thankfully for Cahalan, she lived to help spread the word about this terrifying disorder so more people can hopefully receive treatment in time.
She heard voices, suffered paranoid hallucinations and screamed out in terror. It began with relatively minor symptoms: sensitivity to light and numbness on the left side of her body.
more likely to occur in women than in men. ", Teen equestrian kills self near stable after mom tells her to ride slower, What's wrong with Mitch?
Jared and Ivanka threaten to sue Lincoln Project over Times Square ads, ‘Bachelorette’ star Hannah Brown shares nude pic taken during skinny dip, Busta Rhymes shocks fans with major body transformation, Female-focused co-working spot The Wing considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Dolly Parton Brings Stephen Colbert to Tears Singing “Bury Me Beneath The Willow” on ‘The Late Show’, © 2020 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, New York’s Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, real-life video of Cahalan’s stay in the hospital epilepsy ward, Hunter Biden venture eyed Cuomo, Schumer for deals: documents, Adele shows off slimmed-down look in 'SNL' teaser. “We laughingly called ourselves Dr. Finkelstein and George Clooney, and James mouthed, ‘Her blood is running at an abnormally high level,’ to look authentic!”, The cast and crew were very friendly, and Cahalan was floored by Moretz’s acting ability. In an “aha” moment — after Cahalan drew a lopsided clock, indicating the right side of her brain was impaired — the specialist discovered the cause of her sickness was harmful antibodies in her immune system. As for the symptoms experienced by Cahalan, they're quite terrifying, and she can't even remember most of what happened to her due to the nature of her illness.