When Breath becomes Air- Paul Kalanithi

 

"Brains give rise to our ability to form relationships and make life meaningful. Sometimes, they break."

When Breath becomes Air is a gut-wrenching, inspiring, and heartfelt memoir by a young and brilliant neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, who at the age of  36 comes face-to-face with a life-altering diagnosis indicating terminal cancer. 

Paul Kalinithi was a neurosurgeon-neuroscientist with a burning passion for literature which stemmed out of the need to find and fully understand the meaning of the question that burdens most of us, "What makes life worth living?" He pursued his doctorate in literature from Stanford University and went on to study medicine at Yale. Paul explains in the book how medicine was never the path for him. Medicine to him was an absence, primarily in the form of the absence of a father who as a doctor had to work strenuously for long hours. However, the question that introduced literature to him, now led him towards biology and medicine. "Where did biology, morality, literature, and philosophy intersect?" Paul was an enigma to behold, a man with a wicked sense of humor who cherished family and the relationships he formulated in order to answer the one question that drove most of his endeavors in life. Through medicine, Paul aimed to learn what made life worth living even during its darkest moments when death and decay were right at your doorstep. 

When Breath becomes Air is a journey of a young and naive medical student who has just begun to experience life and death yet manages to find the will and courage to strive forward to find the one answer he has always desired the most. It is when he is at the pinnacle of his perfect life, personally and professionally, that he is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. What makes life worth living when all hopes and dreams one held dear are suddenly destroyed? What drives a person to keep on living when his own identity as a doctor is suddenly snatched away and he is now a patient to be looked after? 

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015 while he was working on this book. The book is nothing short of an inspirational dialogue or a transformative journey of a young aspiring medical student who grows to become a renowned neurosurgeon to switching roles from doctor to patient and finally, a father. 

This book serves as a guide and teaches us a lesson on how to face the question of your own mortality and not see death as a question to avoid, but as an answer to behold. 

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