She Danced with Lightning

In this debut memoir, a father writes of his young daughter's struggles with epilepsy. Palmieri's child, Anna, was just five months old when she experienced her first seizures. She was diagnosed with cortical dysplasia, a lesion or malformation of the frontal lobe of her brain, although tests regarding it were inconclusive. By the age of 2, it appeared that the affected area had shrunk, suggesting that Anna would grow out of having seizures. She tried many medications and routinely experienced episodes while sleeping, so her father spent the night nearby to prevent her from accidentally injuring herself. Anna developed a love of dance and played sports, but when she was 11, she started having symptoms during the day. She was rushed to the emergency room many times before an MRI confirmed the presence of a large lesion. After more than a decade of uncertainty, doctors advised surgery; Anna, afraid she would die during the procedure, insisted on performing in her dance recital. Palmieri writes well, using vivid sensory descriptors to immerse readers in various scenes; these include quieter moments, as the when the author watched TV in a pediatric intensive-care unit: "I kept us tuned to a kind of nature channel, which broadcast nonstop, shifting scenes of pleasing waterfalls, rolling plains, and windy grasslands to the sound of soothing instrumentals. It helped drown out the noise from the rest of the floor, which...carried on with all its activity as if it were high noon." He also logically weaves his own personal story into the narrative. Palmieri once hoped for a baseball career but later tried to make a living with acting jobs and playwriting; he finally settled into teaching a college playwriting class but pursued directing and coaching on the side. His account of this career journey is secondary to his overarching story of his daughter's trials, but in these sections, he honestly tells of trying to find himself while also being a caring father. An earnest and personal perspective on one family's medical struggles.

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