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A review by kacey7
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
5.0
I want to take this book, and force it on every medical professional I’ve ever known. What’s so important to me about this book is not only it’s look at terminal illness, and finding the meaning of life on the verge of death, but it’s examination of what it means to be a physician. Paul constantly is reminding himself of why he went into medicine, and how doctors (including himself) start to look at patients as just patients, instead of the human beings they are underneath their illness.
—————————
(I wrote my original review a year ago, but it all still rings true)
To preface this review, there are two very important facts about me that strongly influenced how I read this book:
1. I amcurrently was in school to become an RN (before health reasons made me take a break)
2. Less than 6 months ago, I was diagnosed with a nearly inoperable brain tumor.
If you’ve read this book, or even just the synopsis of it, you can see why I found it extremely relatable. Paul is a neurosurgeon in his last year of residency. This book is a look at his collective thoughts on the physiological experience of life and death. From his time as a doctor, to his own journey on the path to death, this captures the essence of what it means to live as we face our own mortality.
As a student on my way to join the grueling world of the medical field, and as a patient with an entire host of people on my medical team (neurologists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, geneticists, occupational therapists, etc.), I found this at times to be both poignantly relatable, and excruciatingly painful.
All of his seemingly endless post-diagnosis questions have found themselves running through my own mind: Should I continue on this path I’ve worked towards? Will my child live a lesser life without one of her parents? What kind of life have I been living? What have I been doing with that life? What inherently matters to me?
What makes human life meaningful?
The raw truth of this memoir hit me like a jack hammer. I’ve spent the last few months in and out of doctors offices, spending hours in MRI machines, CT scans, blood work, neurological exams, and never ending questions about my physical capabilities. I related to Paul on such a deep, painful level. I've been the one studying the human body, and I've been the body being studied. Although I am not “dying” (but aren’t we all?) the uncertainty of life is a limbo I will live until my own clock stops ticking. Like he addresses in his memoir, it is almost worse to tread the path of uncertainty than it is to face, and accept, the certain door of death. I have the knowledge of what will most likely cause my demise, without any perceivable timeline, just a finite clarity of the end. It’s unsettling, this acute awareness of deaths inescapability. All we have is the knowledge of our circumstances, and the solutions that don’t exist to change it.
“'Why me?' (Answer: Why not me?)"
Yes, this is a book about death, but more importantly, it’s about the life we live in spite of that inevitability. You have a choice, and Paul reminded me of my choice. Live in fear, or live in hope and love. You can spend your days wishing to change your circumstances, or you can accept your circumstances and spend your days cherishing the laughter of your children, the smile of your significant other, the way the sun glows in the morning sun rise, even enjoying a spirited Christmas in your childhood home.
I think the hardest part of this book was reading about Paul’s daughter, Cady. My daughter was just shy of two when I got my own diagnosis. There’s something even harder about bringing a child into a world of unpredictability than just living in one yourself. Knowing that I might leave this world much earlier than her and I are ready for is something I don’t think any parent can accept. But Paul reminded me that in whatever days I have, I can give her a life worth remembering, and I can give myself immeasurable joy found in her beauty and her love.
Even in the shadow of death,
there is always,
life.
I needed this. More than I knew.
—————————
(I wrote my original review a year ago, but it all still rings true)
To preface this review, there are two very important facts about me that strongly influenced how I read this book:
1. I am
2. Less than 6 months ago, I was diagnosed with a nearly inoperable brain tumor.
If you’ve read this book, or even just the synopsis of it, you can see why I found it extremely relatable. Paul is a neurosurgeon in his last year of residency. This book is a look at his collective thoughts on the physiological experience of life and death. From his time as a doctor, to his own journey on the path to death, this captures the essence of what it means to live as we face our own mortality.
As a student on my way to join the grueling world of the medical field, and as a patient with an entire host of people on my medical team (neurologists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, geneticists, occupational therapists, etc.), I found this at times to be both poignantly relatable, and excruciatingly painful.
All of his seemingly endless post-diagnosis questions have found themselves running through my own mind: Should I continue on this path I’ve worked towards? Will my child live a lesser life without one of her parents? What kind of life have I been living? What have I been doing with that life? What inherently matters to me?
What makes human life meaningful?
The raw truth of this memoir hit me like a jack hammer. I’ve spent the last few months in and out of doctors offices, spending hours in MRI machines, CT scans, blood work, neurological exams, and never ending questions about my physical capabilities. I related to Paul on such a deep, painful level. I've been the one studying the human body, and I've been the body being studied. Although I am not “dying” (but aren’t we all?) the uncertainty of life is a limbo I will live until my own clock stops ticking. Like he addresses in his memoir, it is almost worse to tread the path of uncertainty than it is to face, and accept, the certain door of death. I have the knowledge of what will most likely cause my demise, without any perceivable timeline, just a finite clarity of the end. It’s unsettling, this acute awareness of deaths inescapability. All we have is the knowledge of our circumstances, and the solutions that don’t exist to change it.
Yes, this is a book about death, but more importantly, it’s about the life we live in spite of that inevitability. You have a choice, and Paul reminded me of my choice. Live in fear, or live in hope and love. You can spend your days wishing to change your circumstances, or you can accept your circumstances and spend your days cherishing the laughter of your children, the smile of your significant other, the way the sun glows in the morning sun rise, even enjoying a spirited Christmas in your childhood home.
"We would carry on living, instead of dying."
I think the hardest part of this book was reading about Paul’s daughter, Cady. My daughter was just shy of two when I got my own diagnosis. There’s something even harder about bringing a child into a world of unpredictability than just living in one yourself. Knowing that I might leave this world much earlier than her and I are ready for is something I don’t think any parent can accept. But Paul reminded me that in whatever days I have, I can give her a life worth remembering, and I can give myself immeasurable joy found in her beauty and her love.
Even in the shadow of death,
there is always,
life.
I needed this. More than I knew.
“Why? Because I could. Because that’s who I was. Because I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.”