Prognosis Free Pdf

ISBN: B07MDBSVNK
Title: Prognosis Pdf A Memoir of My Brain

The searing, wry memoir about a woman’s fight for a new life after a devastating brain injury.

When Sarah Vallance is thrown from a horse and suffers a jarring blow to the head, she believes she’s walked away unscathed. The next morning, things take a sharp turn as she’s led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.

Afraid of judgment and deemed no longer fit for work, Sarah isolates herself from the outside world. She spends months at home, with her dogs as her only source of companionship, battling a personality she no longer recognizes and her shock and rage over losing simple functions she’d taken for granted. Her life is consumed by fear and shame until a chance encounter gives Sarah hope that her brain can heal. That conversation lights a small flame of determination, and Sarah begins to push back, painstakingly reteaching herself to read and write, and eventually reentering the workforce and a new, if unpredictable, life.

In this highly intimate account of devastation and renewal, Sarah pulls back the curtain on life with traumatic brain injury, an affliction where the wounds are invisible and the lasting effects are often misunderstood. Over years of frustrating setbacks and uncertain triumphs, Sarah comes to terms with her disability and finds love with a woman who helps her embrace a new, accepting sense of self.

Superficial with an unlikable protagonist This book reads like a diary that details "how I rehabbed my damaged brain on my own." The writer never seeks professional help (because she is hard-headed), blames her mother for not caring about her injury and situation, while acknowledging she has spent years "pushing her buttons," and puts a dog to sleep to appease her girlfriend. There's no deep thinking or self-awareness in this book and I gave up about halfway through (there was nothing left to learn, except I assume she completed her PhD.) I'm surprised this got past the editorial process (if there was one). You won't learn much about brain injuries, either.Vallance loves animals: finish reading the book, folks! First, I have to take issue with an unthinking criticism that a few readers have leveled at this book. This is the story of a woman who loves animals; if you read the whole book, it's obvious -- she even loves the animal who was involved in her near-life-destroying injury. Ifyou look at those reviews below, you can see that Vallance does something hard and heartbreaking (no spoilers) about the third of the way through the book that apparently convinced those few readers that the author must be a cruel person who hates animals. In response, I'd say 1) read what the author has to say about that particular event and look at how it impacts her future decisions 2) read the damn book ***all the way through***. If you think that the awful episode is just author-being-horrible, then you haven't' read it nor been aware that autobiographers can leave things out to make themselves look better, and the fact that this author didn't leave this out tells you a lot about her story and about her love for other creatures.Second: As an M.D. I get tired of feel-good stories about near-death experiences or near-fatal illnesses that have a clean and easy arc involving a savior (a doctor, a treatment, God, a lover, whatever) and eventual reconciliation with the illness or to death via said savior.Serious illness and injury are not like that, and this book is not one of those easy-feel-good books. That's what makes the story so remarkable and worth reading. The book delves into the difficulties, the ups and downs, the periodic helplessness, the moments of hope that people with serious injury or illness go through as they accommodate and battle a recalcitrant body. This is the truth of serious illnesses, not a pretty and easy story.Vallance is honest about how hard her injury is and how TBI affects every part of her life (her love life, her family, her education, her career, her living situations). She's also very clear about how little we know about human neurology and how so much of what's done to help/manage TBI and other neurological illnesses (e.g. Alzheimer's) are piecemeal, guesswork, case-by-case, and trial-and-error. Similar to certain cancers, we don't have a simple, easily-identifiable cause, or an obvious mechanism and progression of illness. Having to learn to live with that, to put a life together around something so life-changing, to do what you think is right to retool your brain -- it's one of the hardest things a person can do -- and harder still when it's unclear what your long-term prognosis is.Vallance tells this story honestly, but never at the expense of the story. The book is beautifully written, factual information gently added to the recounting of her adult life, so that anyone interested in what it's like when your brain changes on you will find both a moving story and information on what we know about TBI.Intelligent, thoughtful, and emotionally honest, this is one of the best books I've read this year.INTERESTING READ. I have to say that while other reviewers are slamming the author for euthanizing her dog - making her seem shallow and uncaring and her partner, Laura, as an unfeeling companion, the dog, people, was getting on the kitchen counter and having projectile diarhhea EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! In the sink, the toaster, etc. So it wasn't as simple as some of the reviewers made it seem. That said, I really felt there could have been alot of benefit if the author had sincerely sought help with her TBI and that piece might have helped other sufferers out there. She did not and it seemed to me that she blames a fair amount of dysfunctional history and her injury for things that might have been just her own behavior. As a occupational therapist who has worked with TBI, I thought her account was unhelpful to anyone seeking to understand either as a friend or someone experiencing TBI.