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WEEK 1
#1-3 1-90
WEEK 2
#4-6 91-140
WEEK 3
#7-9 141-250

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Week 1: 11/30
Week 2: 12/7
Week 3: 12/14

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I chose this book firstly because one of my friends was raving to me about it and how good it was, so I asked if I could borrow it from her and read it after she finished. The reason why I was interested in this book is because I find the brain and the psychological aspects of it very fascinating, and this book gives a lot of great details and facts on the brain and different procedures that had to be done on the narrator's brain in order to save her life. Finally, I chose this book because it is nonfiction and a memoir: two genres that are my favorite to read.

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"The pages were breathing visibly, inhaling and exhaling all around me. My perspective had narrowed, as if I were looking down the hallway through a viewfinder. The fluorescent lights flickered, and the walls tightened claustrophobically around me. As the walls caved in, the ceiling stretched sky-high until I felt as if I were in a cathedral. I put my hand to my chest to quell my racing heart and told myself to breathe. I wasn't frightened; it felt more like the sterile rush of looking down from the window of a hundred-story skyscraper, know you won't fall" (28-29).

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"The pages were breathing visibly, inhaling and exhaling all around me. My perspective had narrowed, as if I were looking down the hallway through a viewfinder. The fluorescent lights flickered, and the walls tightened claustrophobically around me. As the walls caved in, the ceiling stretched sky-high until I felt as if I were in a cathedral. I put my hand to my chest to quell my racing heart and told myself to breathe. I wasn't frightened; it felt more like the sterile rush of looking down from the window of a hundred-story skyscraper, know you won't fall" (28-29).

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This passage is significant, because not only does it foreshadow what the narrator, Susannah, would later be diagnosed with, but it gives the reader a great image of the symptoms that she experienced leading up to the diagnosis. By using intense imagery and similes such as "as if I were looking down the hallway through a viewfinder," the author is able to make the experience seem as real for the reader as it was for her.

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"The haphazard decor made me wonder if everything, including the furniture, had been dug up at a garage sale or pilfered from sidewalk castoffs" (15).

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"The haphazard decor made me wonder if everything, including the furniture, had been dug up at a garage sale or pilfered from sidewalk castoffs" (15).

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pilfer (v) - steal (typically things of relatively little value)
I pilfered candy from my little sister's Halloween bag when she wasn't looking.

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"If anyone looked at me then, they would have assumed that I was deep in thought or working out a story in my head--nothing out of the ordinary. But in fact, I was far away. The pendulum had swung again, and now I felt wobbly and height-sick, that same feeling I'd had at the top of the mountain in Vermont, except without the terror. I floated above the crowd of News Corp. employees. I saw the top of my own head, so close that I could almost reach out and touch myself. I saw Liz... and felt my 'self' reenter my grounded body" (35-36).

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"If anyone looked at me then, they would have assumed that I was deep in thought or working out a story in my head--nothing out of the ordinary. But in fact, I was far away. The pendulum had swung again, and now I felt wobbly and height-sick, that same feeling I'd had at the top of the mountain in Vermont, except without the terror. I floated above the crowd of News Corp. employees. I saw the top of my own head, so close that I could almost reach out and touch myself. I saw Liz... and felt my 'self' reenter my grounded body" (35-36).

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This passage stood out to me, firstly because of the phrase, "the pendulum had swung again". Comparing her symptoms to a pendulum, whether it be swinging or at rest is a powerful statement, because I think of a pendulum as being a heavy and somewhat sizable object, which places emphasis on the intensity of Susannah's condition as being something that placed a great weight on and shadow over her life. Secondly, I took interest in the fact that she put the word "self" in quotation marks, as if to imply that while she was suffering from the illness, she felt that herself was not actually herself, and instead it was this fake, temporary idea of a "self".

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"The rugs, which looked as if they belonged in an avant-garde production of Lawrence of Arabia, swirled before me."

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"The rugs, which looked as if they belonged in an avant-garde production of Lawrence of Arabia, swirled before me."

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avant-garde (adj) - favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas
The scientist took an avant-garde to his research, conducting experiments that had never been done before.

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"I have a gift. I can age people with my mind. This is who I am. And they cannot take this away from me. I am powerful. Stronger than I have ever been in my life" (85).

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"I have a gift. I can age people with my mind. This is who I am. And they cannot take this away from me. I am powerful. Stronger than I have ever been in my life" (85).

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This passage displays how much the illness affected not only Susannah physically, but mentally and emotionally. What stands out to me most is, "I am powerful. Stronger than I have even been in my life." This is such a contrast to reality, because in actuality, she is in poor condition and has to spend a lot of time in the hospital.

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"All the wrinkles on her face smooth out, her eyes grow pert and oblong" (85).

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"All the wrinkles on her face smooth out, her eyes grow pert and oblong" (85).

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pert (adj) - (of a girl or young woman) attractively lively or cheeky
The pert girl looked beautiful with her obvious signs of youth.

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"At the hospital, he kissed Giselle good-bye and squeezed onto the crowded elevator. It was excruciating taking this trip alongside the fresh-faced new fathers being ferried to the maternity floor, some of whom bounded vigorously off the elevator. Life was just beginning for these people. The next stop was the cardiac floor, full of concerned looks, and then finally it was the twelfth floor: epilepsy. His turn to get off"(95). 

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"At the hospital, he kissed Giselle good-bye and squeezed onto the crowded elevator. It was excruciating taking this trip alongside the fresh-faced new fathers being ferried to the maternity floor, some of whom bounded vigorously off the elevator. Life was just beginning for these people. The next stop was the cardiac floor, full of concerned looks, and then finally it was the twelfth floor: epilepsy. His turn to get off"(95). 

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This passage caught my attention because rather than constantly talking about how Susannah's illness affected her own life, she also makes sure to reflect on how it affected the lives of people who were close to her. I also noticed how her wording of "...then finally it was the twelfth floor: epilepsy" is a completely different mood than the beginning of the passage, and this is effectively carried over to the reader through the word choice; the use of the colon before "epilepsy" also made it more ominous.

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"Dr. Najjar would eventually graduate at the top of his class in medical school and immigrate to the United States, where he not only became an esteemed neurologist but also an epileptologist and neuropathologist. His own story arried with it a moral that applied to all of his patients: he was determined never to give up on any of them" (129).

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"Dr. Najjar would eventually graduate at the top of his class in medical school and immigrate to the United States, where he not only became an esteemed neurologist but also an epileptologist and neuropathologist. His own story arried with it a moral that applied to all of his patients: he was determined never to give up on any of them" (129).

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Susannah Cahalan seems to describe Dr. Najjar in such a way to build his credibility by providing the reader with all of his accomplishments and by touching upon his hardworking personality. Additionally, perhaps Cahalan included this passage in effort to thank him for all that he did for her by introducing him in such a favorable and admirable way.

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"Dr. Najjar, beaming, grabbed the paper, showed it to my parents, and explained what this meant. They gasped with a combination of terror and hope. This was finally the clue that everyone was searching for. It didn't involve fancy machinery or invasive tests; it required only paper and pen" (132). 

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"Dr. Najjar, beaming, grabbed the paper, showed it to my parents, and explained what this meant. They gasped with a combination of terror and hope. This was finally the clue that everyone was searching for. It didn't involve fancy machinery or invasive tests; it required only paper and pen" (132). 

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The beginning of this passage displays a juxtaposition of darkness and light with describing her parents are feeling both terror and hope. Similarly, given the severity of Susannah's illness, this event was a major turning point in the most positive of ways within a situation that at times felt hopeless and painful. It also stood out to me how simple the discovery was.

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"...my dad felt as if some primal part of me was reaching out to him as I repeated over and over, 'I'm dying in here. This place is killing me. Please let me leave'" (98).

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"...my dad felt as if some primal part of me was reaching out to him as I repeated over and over, 'I'm dying in here. This place is killing me. Please let me leave'" (98).

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primal (adj) - relating to an early stage in evolutionary development; primeval
The dog's primal instincts kicked in when he sensed fear, and he attacked the man who was running away.

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"On April 2, the nurses started my first round of five intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) infusions" (116). 

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"On April 2, the nurses started my first round of five intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) infusions" (116). 

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intravenous (adj) - existing or taking place within, or administered into, a vein or veins
Heroin is commonly an intravenous drug, administered with a special needle.

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"Catatonia is more akin to the results of a botched lobotomy than a persistent vegetative state because the person is technically still active" (120). 

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"Catatonia is more akin to the results of a botched lobotomy than a persistent vegetative state because the person is technically still active" (120). 

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vegetative (adj) - (of a person) alive but comatose and without apparent brain activity or responsiveness
She found out that the vegetative patient who lay in her bed day after day was in fact under a medically-induced coma.

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"'Goooooood.' I drawled out the word like I had enough marbles in my mouth for a game of mancala. My mind continued to circle around that vast emptiness. Say something! I screamed inside, but nothing came. In the silence, I felt the sun beat down on my shoulders" (182).

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"'Goooooood.' I drawled out the word like I had enough marbles in my mouth for a game of mancala. My mind continued to circle around that vast emptiness. Say something! I screamed inside, but nothing came. In the silence, I felt the sun beat down on my shoulders" (182).

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In this passage, Susannah is struggling to find words to say to a friend that she ran into. Her brain illness limited her social skills significantly, which was hard because she was still very conscious of the fact that nothing would come out of her mouth. One thing that stood out to me in this passage was the last sentence. Feeling sun on your shoulders is usually a comforting and pleasant feeling, but Susannah's use of the word "beat" and the context of the situation further emphasized how uncomfortable this situation was for her.

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"I struggled to conjure the loquaciousness that had once been a primary aspect of my personality, but in its place found a deep blankness" (182).

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"I struggled to conjure the loquaciousness that had once been a primary aspect of my personality, but in its place found a deep blankness" (182).

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loquacious (adj) - tending to talk a great deal; talkative
Her loquaciousness made her very outgoing, as she could start a conversation with anyone.

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"At the beginning of the night, my mom made me promise that I would drink only one glass of wine. I all but rolled my eyes when I agreed and then went ahead and drank several flutes of champagne... Even though my brain was still repairing itself and it's undoubtedly dangerous to mix alcohol with antipsychotics, I insisted on drinking. I didn't care how self-destructive it might be--this was something tangible that connected me to the 'normal' Susannah" (187).  

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"At the beginning of the night, my mom made me promise that I would drink only one glass of wine. I all but rolled my eyes when I agreed and then went ahead and drank several flutes of champagne... Even though my brain was still repairing itself and it's undoubtedly dangerous to mix alcohol with antipsychotics, I insisted on drinking. I didn't care how self-destructive it might be--this was something tangible that connected me to the 'normal' Susannah" (187).  

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This passage gets very deep, as Susannah reveals how damaged the illness left her, not just physically, but emotionally. She longed to be normal again so much so that she was willing to participate in harmful activities that the old, healthy Susannah did not have to worry about. This insight allows the reader to see even more how reckless and inattentive Susannah's sickness caused her to be.

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"Just three years marks the demarcation between a full life and a half-existence in an institution, or, even worse, an early ending under the cold, hard tombstone" (209).

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"Just three years marks the demarcation between a full life and a half-existence in an institution, or, even worse, an early ending under the cold, hard tombstone" (209).

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demarcation (n) - a dividing line
The break from school served as a demarcation between the first and second semester.

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"Though hallucinations, paranoia, and an illusory grasp on reality are the hallmarks of those with schizophrenia, you don't need to suffer from a mental illness to induce these symptoms" (242).

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"Though hallucinations, paranoia, and an illusory grasp on reality are the hallmarks of those with schizophrenia, you don't need to suffer from a mental illness to induce these symptoms" (242).

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illusory (adj) - based on illusion; not real
The man had been stranded in the desert for two months and was beginning to see illusory oases around him.

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"I had enough distance from my own madness to view it as a hypothetical. But watching myself on screen, up close and personal, obliterated that journalistic distance. The girl in the video is a reminder about how fragile our hold on sanity and health is and how much we are at the utter whim of our Brutus bodies, which will inevitably, one day, turn on us for good. I am a prisoner, and we all are. And with that realization comes an aching sense of vulnerability" (227)

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"I had enough distance from my own madness to view it as a hypothetical. But watching myself on screen, up close and personal, obliterated that journalistic distance. The girl in the video is a reminder about how fragile our hold on sanity and health is and how much we are at the utter whim of our Brutus bodies, which will inevitably, one day, turn on us for good. I am a prisoner, and we all are. And with that realization comes an aching sense of vulnerability" (227)

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This passage is incredibly powerful. First, Susannah reveals how she has tried to detach herself from this "girl" that was sick and crazy, pretending that it is not necessarily real. Her description of that approach being of relation to how she approaches journalism, disconnecting her feelings from her job as a writer to produce stories. It was only second nature for her that she would attempt to do the same with her own story, considering how tragic her case was. In this passage, Susannah also dives into her harsh realization of the inevitability of death, describing it as when our bodies "turn on us for good." This illness has helped her realize how sudden and unexpected fatality can become. The last two sentences of this passage were very moving, as Susannah reaches the conclusion of her point: how we are "prisoners" in our own bodies, almost as if the mind is completely separated from the body, and that the mind is contained in the body like a hostage in a sense that the body holds dominance and completely control, and it could quit any second without the mind seeing it coming.