Patient H69
Subtitle: the story of my second sight
By: Vanessa Potter
Series: Bloomsbury sigma; Bloomsbury sigma series
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781472936103; 9781472936110
Subjects: Blind; Neurosciences; Optic neuritis; Life change events; Blind women; People with visual disabilities; Patients; Case studies; Health; Blindness; Biography
Other titles: Patient H 69
Description: "In 2012, Vanessa Potter, a married advertising film producer with two young children, was stricken by Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder (NMOSD), a rare illness that resulted in sudden blindness and paralysis. She was hospitalized for two weeks. Over the next five months at home, she regained mobility but recovering her sight was more problematic. At first what she saw was monochromatic. As color reappeared, she encountered synesthesia (experiencing odd responses to stimuli, such as hearing inanimate objects talk to her). While a multidisciplinary team of neurobiologists, psychologists, immunologists, and developmental biologists treated her, she blogged and kept audio-diaries, using the pen-name Patient H69. In her own words, Potter reveals the terror and torment of her blindness. Supported by neuroscientists and Britain's National Health Service, Potter became a science sleuth, uncovering some of the innermost functions of the brain and our complex visual system, while learning meditation and self-hypnosis to help herself endure the ordeal and make a miraculous recovery."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-279) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: The story of Patient H69; title: part 1: Diary of events: MMXII ; Snake bite ; The pillow ; D-Day ; Home ; Mowbray Road ; Painting project 1; title: part 2: Diary of the science: The science of my sight ; The art of seeing ; Synaesthesia ; Memory ; Making no sense ; Cambridge Science Festival 2015 ; 20/200 ; Time traveller; title: Appendix I: The beach : a visualized sanctuary; title: Appendix II: Visualization guide.