This book hooked me from the very first lines. It's a very engaging one. It was a little confusing at first, but since it's about (and by) a person freshly out of a few brain surgeries, I think the confusion works well in describing what the person felt at the time, and maybe that was even the whole point.

I was also in awe of the friends the author had. Seriously, we all need a Cindy or a Joyce in our lives. Friends like that can save your entire life.

That said, it was incredibly sad to read too. Imagining that all we are can just melt away due to illness is heartbreaking. The brain does so much, and we seldom think about it. The brain IS us. It's who we are. Take the tiniest bit of it away, and you can't use your old abilities anymore, things that made sense, don't anymore. It's hard to take in, cause we tend to think our individuality is indestructible. But it's not. It's just in our brain. And this book did a good job at making you face and understand that.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

But My Brain Had Other Ideas by Deb Brandon is a very inspirational autobiography about the author’s long-term recovery from cavernous angioma through a number of brain surgeries, help from family and friends, and an ironclad will to not give up on herself and at life. Despite the condition that she’s in, she continues to do a lot of activities including training for triathlons. Recommended to those who are struggling at anything in this point of their life. This book will remind you that hope is out there.

This one sounded interesting--I've known a few people who have had brain surgery and a few who have had TBIs, so I was curious to hear Ms. Brandon's story and see how well it was told.

The telling is a bit fractured--but considering what Ms. Brandon has gone through, it both reflects the damage but also helps the reader relate.

The writing was clear, the narrative easy to follow, and it was interesting. There was nothing overly stellar about the book, and I won't read it again, but it was worth the time spent.

Call me a stickybeak (I call it curious / deeply interested) but I love memoirs. I want to understand the emotional context of situations that would otherwise be completely foreign to me.

Medical memoirs occupy a bit of a tricky spot in the memoir market because they usually appeal predominantly to people who are experiencing a similar thing - it makes sense to read about other people's experience to make sense of your own. While you'll usually find me in the 'misery memoirs' section, I do occasionally stray and Deb Brandon's <a href="https://amzn.to/2zn1TQc" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>But</em> <em>My Brain Had Other Ideas</em></a> is such an example.<!--more-->

When Deb Brandon - mathematician, dragon-boater, weaver - discovered she had <a href="http://www.angiomaalliance.org/pages.aspx?content=62" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cavernous angiomas</a>, tangles of blood vessels in her brain that are also described as 'distant cousins of aneurysms', she underwent multiple brain surgeries and years of rehabilitation. Her memoir documents her diagnosis, her surgeries and the challenges of living with an acquired brain injury (ABI).

Brandon's story begins with a series of terrifying symptoms -
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Without warning, the universe explodes. I cannot see. I cannot hear. My entire world has become pain. The pain has no orientation - it has no location, it has no direction, it has no measure. I am pain.</em></p>
Her diagnosis triggered an existential crisis. More than once at the beginning of her rehabilitation, Brandon wished she was dead. Frustrated by her limitations and constant fatigue, and still managing chronic pain, she felt that she couldn't go on. Although she doesn't identify a particular turning point, she does go into detail about how understanding sensory overload (and the fact that she wasn't going crazy, it was just her brain circuitry 'jamming') made the difference -
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>All the sounds, sights, and smells blend together, forming a pulsating mass in constant motion, continually deforming, buckling, bulging. Random bits and pieces strike at you forcefully... Your brain cannot keep up; you cannot focus on anything long enough to make sense of it.</em></p>
But hypersensitivity has a flip side -
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>...those damaged sensory input filters also let the world into my life in a rainbow of bright colours. They enable me to immerse myself in my surroundings and to absorb details I used to gloss over. </em></p>
The thing that constantly fascinates me is that memories, emotions and knowledge - all this stuff that has no 'physical' form - is bound up in brain tissue in such a mysterious way (which is why I never get tired of reading about neuroplasticity). Brandon writes about how her behaviour changed after the surgeries, noting that the effectiveness of the system of filters we construct over our life determines our behaviour in a variety of situations -
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>The bloody brain damaged my filtration system... It seems as if the surgeries tore gaping holes... through these holes, strong emotions, impassioned speeches, or crude language pour into the world.</em></p>
My main quibble with this book is my usual one for memoirs - it's what's left out that I want more of. In this case, Brandon's marriage broke down during her rehabilitation but is only mentioned briefly. I wonder how her 'strong emotions filter' managed during that emotionally challenging time? Likewise, she mentions having her children genetically tested for cavernous angiomas (it can be genetic) but not the outcome of those tests - her children have a right to privacy but again, genetic testing is an enormously emotionally taxing process and understanding how Brandon negotiated that would have been interesting.

3/5 Interesting for interested readers.

I received my copy of <em>But My Brain Had Other Ideas </em>from the publisher, She Writes Press, via <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/119882" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NetGalley</a>, in exchange for an honest review.

A very inspiring story of the author's ongoing recovery from brain injury. It really opened my eyes to the far reaching effects of brain injury. The author's grit and determination to triumph over the challenges she faces and to never give up shines throughout her story.

Reviews were posted to goodreads, netgalley and amazon.com on December 2nd, 2017

I really wanted to like this book, and I love how it really delved deep into the issues faced by people with ABI due to surgery and also the issues faced by people with cavernous angiomas, but the author is just so damn unlikeable. I get that she's trying to paint a realistic portrait of her behaviour and actions, but fuck! She's a selfish brat who doesn't seem to attempt to work on her bad behaviour, instead excusing it as a symptom of her injury. It makes it so hard to read on when you just don't care what happens to the protagonist.
The book itself is jumbled - it's not in chronological order, and the relationships the author is in jump back and forth accordingly, so you know she leaves her husband well before she tells you anything about leaving her husband. I don't know, I like the detail and the pragmatism and go her for overcoming something most people die from, but I found the book boring and long-winded in places, and the author annoyingly self-absorbed.

An amazing story, reminded me a lot of Brain on Fire

Such a deep look into traumatic brain injury. Well researched, well told.

*Thank you to Netgalley and She Writes Press for an ARC in exchange for a review*

Expected publication: October 10, 2017

When Deb Brandon discovered that cavernous angiomas--tangles of malformed blood vessels in her brain--were behind the terrifying symptoms she'd been experiencing, she underwent one brain surgery. And then another. And then another. And that was just the beginning.

The book also includes an introduction by Connie Lee, founder and president of the Angioma Alliance. Unlike other memoirs that focus on injury crisis and acute recovery, But My Brain Had Other Ideas follows Brandon's story all the way through to long-term recovery, revealing without sugarcoating or sentimentality Brandon's struggles--and ultimate triumph.

I found Brandon's journey poignant, especially since my father suffered a traumatic brain injury in the summer of 2017. As a family member, I can relate to much of what she describes during the diagnosis and healing process--the terror, confusion, frustration, rage, and pockets of all too fleeting hope. Reading Brandon's memoir gives me some insight into what my father may have experience and shows me that our own experience with some neuro-specialists was similar--how can you justify sending someone home who has literally just had major brain surgery?

One criticism for me as a reader what the ebb and flow of the memoir itself. I remain unsure if the fractured nature of some of the pacing was intentional to mimic the author's recovery or if it was a weakness of editing. This stunted my ability to read without having to take significant breaks.

Overall, while our own family story didn't have the happy ending we'd hoped for, I gained solace through Brandon's ability to share her struggle and her triumph.

Final rating: 3 out of 5 stars