Author Maria McCutchen

Maria McCutchen is the author of It’s all in Your Head, her memoir telling her story of what she endured after being diagnosed with a rare brain cyst, followed by multiple surgeries, complications, and her quest to regain her health and life. It is a moving book that helps bring awareness, not only to other people living with a brain cyst, but to the medical community who do not fully understand this rare phenomenon.

Growing up in a medical family gave Maria her love of medicine. She worked for many years in the medical field, working in physician’s offices, but left the field thirteen years ago to become a fulltime mom. During her first years of motherhood, Maria developed her skills of writing and started her freelance writing career. She has never looked back.

Maria grew up in Atlanta with her father a family physician and her mother a nurse.  She lived in several cities throughout her life; including, Orlando, Albuquerque, and Chattanooga, and currently resides in North Carolina with her two beautiful boys, and her equally as beautiful, Standard Poodle, Murphy.

It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain by Maria McCutchen

Click on image to buy from Tate Publishing

Maria McCutchen did not have time to be sick. With a husband who had just lost a job, two young sons, and a cross-country move on the horizon, who had time to be sick? Maria didn’t have time for a common cold, let alone a major medical condition. But one day while shopping in the grocery store where she had shopped hundreds of times before, she couldn’t find the milk. It was then she knew what she was feeling was more than just stress or exhaustion. There was something very wrong.

After consulting a few doctors, Maria discovered she had a rare brain cyst known as a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst—a very large brain cyst. Hearing these cysts were normally asymptomatic was of little comfort, especially because she felt her mind and body slipping away more and more every day. Normal mental and physical functions were becoming harder to control. Even if the doctors didn’t believe the cyst was a problem, she knew it was.

It would take months of living inside a shell of a person that she’d become, months of living in a mental fogginess and sometimes even physical pain, before she would finally get the medical attention she needed. It’s All in Your Head chronicles her harrowing medical odyssey and her attempts to regain some sort of semblance of her old life after treatment.

Maria McCutchen’s Recent Posts

• No Matter What Your Medical Condition, Be Your Own Best Advocate – Essay by Maria McCutchen
  A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of "It's All in Your Head - A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain" Have you ever had a medical problem that you just could not get doctors to listen to you about? Have you ever had to try to convince the medical profession [More...]

• Maria McCutchen: Facing and Dealing With Brain Surgery
  A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of "It's All in Your Head - A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain" The brain controls everything about your body; from moving your extremities, to regulating sleep, breathing, to eating habits, even your sex drive. There are different areas of the brain that [More...]

• Maria McCutchen: Remember Who You Were, but Accept Who You Are
  A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of "It's All in Your Head - A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain" When tragedy strikes, it's not always easy to stay focused on what matters, but rather your mind drifts, and you start focusing on the negative; what is different, what is [More...]

• An Enduring Love In Good Times and in Bad – Essay by Author Maria McCutchen
  A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of "It's All in Your Head - A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain" Living with an Arachnoid cyst is tough. It tests you emotionally, mentally, and maybe most of all, physically. When I started having symptoms from my cyst, although subtle at first, [More...]

• How to get a Night’s Sleep with Brain Problems by Maria McCutchen
  A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of "It's All in Your Head - A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain" Sleep is precious to me, today. Because I typically only get 3-5 hours a night, and some nights, less, I will feel like I hit the jackpot when I get [More...]

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