Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath Book

After reading Mason's "Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath" which distinctly offers a variant perspective on "neurology" from that of a brain injury case manager---as I had become accustomed to the view from a neurosurgeon. Snowboarder case was gripping as is our commendable Air Force surgeons treating 10,000 traumatic head injuries during the war on terror. Mason quips "What are we other than our brains?"

"When a seizure involves only muscular stiffening, it's called a tonic seizure...when the tonic seizure is followed by muscle contractions, it becomes the most renowned and feared seizure: the grand Mal (tonic-clonic seizure)."

---Michael Paul Mason

Mason's job as caseworker is one rife with frustration. At Balad hospital what he calls a normal day is actually a retinue of facial contortions coupled with seizures, and at times patients running with knives. One patient case speaks to a total loss of memory on how they arrived at the hospital in the first place. Another patient lost both short and long-term memory'-freight train collision. Many sad truths illuminated in these cases.

Patients of Mason include an amnesiac incarcerated for a crime he has no recollection of. Though this is only the "début," tragedies commence when health insurance policy is exhausted. Riveting read of this painful landscape into the life of patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries (told energetically by advocate Mason). Not an elementary read nor is brain injury a simple issue to solve. Must read. Buy, consider and reflect.