By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Columnist
When Breath Becomes Air is a heartbreaking autobiography of Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s experience from going from training to be a neurosurgeon to being treated for lung cancer.
From his early adult years, Kalanithi was always interested in life and philosophy. However, the human brain amazed him too. In college, he struggled with deciding whether to pursue a career in literature or biology. He decided to go with the latter first, and then, eventually move on to book writing as he got older.
Kalanithi shares his experiences in the medical field. He illustrates the tough decisions of having to give up on patients that can’t be saved and the miraculous times when he saves someone from dying. Ultimately, Kalanithi has always seen fatal situations from a doctor’s perspective. That is until Paul Kalanithi is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Now, he perceives life as being the patient and realizing that he hasn’t got much more time left to live.
Kalanithi decided to write this book shortly after he was diagnosed. He always wanted to be a writer and now he could share his struggle of living life to the fullest while having a mortal illness.
Dr. Paul Kalanithi lost his battle to cancer last year in 2015, almost two years after being diagnosed. However, in those two years, Kalanithi completed his neurosurgery training, wrote this book, and had a daughter named Cady.
When Breath Becomes Air is such a beautifully written book. Paul takes his readers on his journey of dealing with lung cancer. Readers of this book have a strange insight because we know that he has died, but at the time he wrote this book, he didn’t really know how much longer he had. Towards the end, it is evident that he knows his time is coming near, but when he’s first diagnosed, he has know idea whether he’s going to live only six months more or ten years. Nevertheless, Kalanithi shows us that one knows the most about the true meaning of life when he doesn’t have much of it left.
I recommend When Breath Becomes Air to anyone interested in the medical field. It may be helpful because Kalanithi uses many medical terms to describe both his situation and his patients’. However, you don’t have to be interested in medicine to be able to appreciate Kalanithi’s story of him dealing with ending what potentially could have been a very successful life.
Thank you to Goodreads and Random House for sending me this book in return for my honest opinion.
