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The Story Collider

Susannah Cahalan: Patient #217

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Arts, Science, Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Performing Arts

4.4824 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2013

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Three years after a mysterious illness nearly drove her insane and took her life, Susannah Cahalan visits a patient with the same rare, dangerous condition. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Susannah Cahalan is the New York Times bestselling author of "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness." She began her investigative reporting career at The New York Post when she took an internship her senior year of high school. She has now been at The Post for ten years, three of which she worked full-time after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has also been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, and Glamour UK.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:03.0

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0:06.9

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0:13.9

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0:16.9

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0:23.1

That's Shopify.com.com slash special offer.

0:28.2

A science story, huh?

0:31.4

Is NYU scientist the...

0:33.2

I felt...

0:33.9

And I just thought, well...

0:36.2

It was that golden moment.

0:39.3

Because science was on my side.

0:41.3

Hey, everyone.

0:43.3

I'm Ben Lilly. Where we bring you true stories of how science has affected people's lives.

0:59.8

This week's story is from Susanna Cowellan.

1:02.5

The story was recorded in June 2013 at Drum in New York City.

1:07.2

The theme of the night was lost.

1:21.1

I was going to visit a girl named Julie in the hospital, but I had never met her before.

1:27.3

I was a little bit worried about it, but a doctor had asked me to go visit her, actually,

1:32.6

a man named Suhail Najjar, who was very close to my heart. So I agreed to do it. And I walked from my office in Midtown to NYU Medical Center, and along the way, I stopped at a stationary

1:38.4

store, and there I picked up a half dozen dozen balloons and some had smiley faces on them,

...

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