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Title details for The Beginning of Everything by Andrea J Buchanan - Available

The Beginning of Everything

by Andrea J Buchanan
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
Andrea Buchanan lost her mind while crossing the street one day. Suffering from a horrible cough, she inhaled the cold March air, and choked. She was choking on a lot that day. A sick child. A pending divorce. The guilt of failing, as a partner, as a mother. Relieved when the coughing abated, she thought it was over. She could not have been more wrong.When Andrea coughed that day, a small tear was ripped in her dura mater, the membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord. But she didn't know that yet. Instead, she went on with her day, unaware that her cerebrospinal fluid was already beginning to leak out of that tiny tear.What followed was nine months of pain and confusion as her brain—no longer cushioned by a healthy waterbed of fluid—sank to the bottom of her skull. There was brain fog and cognitive impairment to the point where she could not even make sense of the most basic concepts. At a time when she needed to be as clear-thinking as possible, she was trapped by her brain.The mind-brain connection is one of the greatest mysteries of the human condition. In some folklore, the fluid around the brain is where consciousness begins. Here, in the pages of The Beginning of Everything, Andrea seeks to understand: Where was "I" when I wasn't there?

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 1, 2018

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781681777290
      • File size: 3400 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781681777290
      • File size: 3400 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 5, 2018
      Buchanan (The Gift) chronicles a year of physical and mental anguish in this disturbing memoir of an enigmatic illness. In the midst of a painful divorce from her physician husband of 20 years, Buchanan came down with the flu. In an intense fit of coughing, she tore the membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord, causing her cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to leak. Unaware of the damage, she suffered excruciating headaches, brain fog, and a general disruption of her life. Over time, the author met with various doctors with little result; only after traveling from her Philadelphia home to Duke University Hospital in North Carolina did solutions emerge. At the same time, her divorce was finalized. As her medical mystery is cleared up, readers learn about the characteristics of a CSF leak and the difficulties of treatment. Buchanan is uncannily adept at describing pain (she likens the sinus pain to flying in a plane “at that altitude that makes your sinus pressure unbearable”) and charting the snail’s pace of recovery; a former classical pianist, she takes up playing again, her practice becoming a brain-training method. Readers will be fascinated by this introspective medical journey and heartened by the simultaneous healing of a family torn by divorce.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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