When Breaths Becomes Air
Paul was 37 years old in 2015 and foreve-r 37.
Before he was 35, almost everyone of us can't say we don't envy him. Graduated from Stanford University with a BA and MA in English literature and a BA in human biology, he earned an MPhil in history and philosophy of science and medicine from the University of Cambridge and graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society. He returned to Stanford to complete his residency training in neurological surgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience, during which he received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research.
Having a high degree was good enough, what's more , he owned a decent , respectful and promising-looking occupation––a neurosurgeon who can save patients in need by his professional expertise as well as earn himself a good living.
Besides, we have to mention his wife, Lucy,who was an internist. They had been in love with each other since they were medical students and got married after they graduated.
High degree, decent occupation, harmonious marriage, everything seemed to be better. Nevertheless, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get. What Paul got when he was 35 didn't appear to be fortune.
Yep, lung cancer, just as what he wrote in his book, Only 0.0012 percent of thirty-six-year-olds get lung cancer.Thus,all cancer patients are unlucky, but there’s cancer, and then there’s CANCER, and you have to be really unlucky to have the latter.
Great changes had been taken since he was diagnosed with cancer. Three words, from my point of view, can sum up his life in this phase.
Transformation. "I had traversed the line from doctor to patient, from actor to acted upon, from subject to direct object." Hardly can we imagine how desperate it was to know the fact, though having a sense of what it’s like to be sick, but until you’ve gone through it yourself, you don’t really know.
Option. Delving into medical science or turning back to literature for answers, rebuilding his old life or finding a new one, those, were all choices he had to made. If he had had some sense of how much time he had left, it’d be easier.
Cognition."The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing." He wrote like this and began to think about deat9h. His attitude is"Even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living", which I admire a lot. One of my friends says, he prefer to see death as an abstract concept rather than concrete factor which need to be taken into account. Maybe it is a little childish and idealistic, but, I like it, cause it’s not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future—that is, beyond lunch.
Luckily, there was something precious that didn't change, that was, Lucy.
I have a friend whose boyfriend left her on knowing she had Moyamoya, of course ,I scolded the boy silently at first , but then I came to understand him. He is just a ordinary person, maybe he is just terrified and afraid of losing his lover.
By comparison，how brave Lucy was, supporting his ambitions, listening to his whispered fears ,witnessing,acknowledging,accepting,comforting. They did achieve what is sungin The Servant Song “I will share your joy and sorrow / Till we’ve seen this journey through.”
-What are you most afraid or sad about?” -Leaving you
-Can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?
-It is the only way I know how to breathe.
"Had he lived, he would have made great contributions as a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist. He would have helped countless patients and their families through some of the most challenging moments of their lives, the task that drew him to neurosurgery in the first place. He was, and would have continued to be, a good person and a deep thinker ". That is what Lucy wrote in this book, and , that is exactly what I want to say.
May he rest in piece.
It is a good book and I know this is not the last time I read it.
