Review by Booklist Review
As a director of the National Institute of Mental Health who focused on the impact of schizophrenia on the brain, Lipska knew a thing or two about mental illness. But she knew considerably more after she exhibited signs of the disease and came back from the brink with amazing insights. In 2015, she was sitting at her desk when her right hand seemed to disappear, as though it was missing. She thought that might indicate a tumor. Then the faces of her coworkers started vanishing. An M.R.I. scan did, indeed, reveal a brain tumor, followed by a diagnosis of metastatic melanoma. Surgery and an immunotherapy clinical trial were scheduled. For eight weeks, her brain further betrayed her, causing her to act erratically and lose her grip. Thankfully, the treatments worked, and Lipska found her way back to normal while retaining memories of her ordeal. Her story, told with coauthor McArdle, conveys deep understanding about the brain and how disease, injury, and age can change our very selves.--Paloutzian, Andie Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a terrifying moment one morning in January 2015, neuroscientist Lipska lost sight of her right-hand while she was eating breakfast. As she reveals in this fast-paced memoir, her symptoms eventually lead her doctors to discover that a melanoma had spread to her brain. Although she studied brain disorders for a living, she was afraid to look at the first MRIs of her own brain, admitting that her brain was a ¿mortal danger¿ to her. Following surgery to remove the small malignant tumor that caused vision loss, Lipska, hopeful she could return to normal life, began an intensely active physical regimen of cycling and running. Within a few weeks, however, she experienced dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms, exhibiting aggressive behavior, caused by what she would learn were lesions in her brain. Lipska shares excruciating details of the drug therapies and other treatments she underwent, such as radiation and taking immunotherapy drugs. She recognizes that she will never be the same and that she must deal with brain scans and other tests the rest of her life, but she revels in the pleasures of living every day with her family. Her exhilarating memoir reveals the frustrations of slow recovery, and that even with the best medical care there are no guarantees for good health. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
When Lipska, a renowned brain scientist and triathlete, feared something was seriously wrong when she noticed part of her visual field had disappeared. A high-achieving Polish immigrant with a loving, supportive family, she had survived breast cancer and a previous bout of melanoma. When an MRI revealed brain tumors caused by metastatic melanoma, she was treated with surgery and radiation, then immunotherapy. After two months, though, the tumors multiplied, and her brain swelled dangerously, causing her to experience some of the same symptoms of dementia and schizophrenia as the people whose brains she had studied. She raged at her family, lost her inhibitions, and got lost while walking in her neighborhood. After beginning targeted therapy, she miraculously started to become herself again. In explicit, yet approachable language, Lipska explains what happened to her brain. Unfortunately, Emma Powell's narration, while clear and upbeat, doesn't feel quite authentic. VERDICT This touchingly candid account of personal resilience throughout a devastating diagnosis and treatment will appeal to memoir enthusiasts and listeners interested in how the brain functions. ["Readers who enjoyed Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight and Susannah Callahan's Brain on Fire will find this memoir of interest": LJ 4/15/18 review of the Houghton Harcourt hc.]- Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A vibrant mental health expert's bout with brain cancer and the revolutionary treatments that saved her life.In 2015, Lipska, a veteran neuroscientist and triathlete who studies brains at the National Institute of Mental Health, found herself in a panic while out jogging in her suburban Virginia neighborhood. Without warning, she suddenly didn't recognize her surroundings and became severely disoriented. Her confusion dissipated, and then she received a devastating diagnosis of metastatic melanoma in her brain emerged. The resulting grueling two-month ordeal battling debilitating mental problems forms the core of this intensive memoir. The author briefly sketches the details of her history as a young, ambitious research scientist in Poland who eventually moved her family to America to pursue the study of brain illnesses and schizophrenia. In 2009, she underwent a mastectomy after a breast cancer diagnosis. In frank, unfettered prose, Lipska clearly demonstrates her courage, resilience, and pure dread in the face of disease and adversity. Of the three tumors found in her brain, one particularly "nasty raisin," vexingly located in the folds of her visual cortex," was bleeding. Though excised immediately, the author's mental acuity deteriorated. Through urgent and vigorous passages, the author chronicles a valiant fight for her life, with radiation treatments and an immunotherapy trial, which caused a whole new subset of medical maladies. Toward the end of the treatment plan, her behavior went haywire, and she suffered cognitive impairment, rage, paranoia, and bafflement, all of which crowded out any semblance of rationality. Eventually, however, the treatments worked, and Lipska experienced a miraculous (and statistically rare) "second chance at sanity." Throughout it all, the sheer irony of her ordeal never escaped her: "I am living through some of the processes of a disease that I've spent my life studying and trying to cure."A harrowing, intimately candid survivor's journey through the minefields of cancer treatment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
