The doctors thought that Emily’s problems were psychological, like her parents had thought, and though they ran tests on her and tried various medcine, nothing seemed to have an effect.
The treatments, if anything, made Emily even worse and at this point the doctors thought that her condition may be physical in nature, like a tumor on the brain, but they couldn’t find any physical evidence that this was the case either.
The whole family tried everything they could, but desperately nothing really helped or got to the bottom of the problem and all the time Emily was still getting worse.
In a strange turn of events the family were alerted to an episode of the ‘Today Show’, and to their surprise and shock something made them sit up and pay attention!
The story they heard was of a New York Post reporter, Susannah Cahalan, she wrote an article about the time she spent a month thinking she was for sure losing the plot. The storey sounded very similar to what the family had experienced with Emily, which prompted the doctors to then run tests on Emily!
Susannah suffered from a condition of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which causes the immune system to attack parts of the brain, causing neurological damage and strange behaviour.
Emily’s doctors were not receptive at all to the family’s suggestion and queries, they were convinced that the family were just grasping at straws.
