after his weight dropped precipitously and he started experiencing unrelenting back pain . One day he was a neurosurgeon making life and death decisions and extirpating brain tumors by intricate surgery , and the next day he was a patient on the other side of the stethoscope struggling to remain alive ; his presumed future simply evaporated . A different perspective of a terminally ill patient can be gleaned from Christopher Hitchens , a British-American writer who wrote multiple defiant and honest pieces about his own life and his devastating illness in Vanity Fair and in his final book “ Mortality ” that was published posthumously in 2012 . After being diagnosed with esophageal cancer that eventually culminated in his death on December 11 , 2011 , he suddenly found himself , “ being deported from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady .”
Paul Kalanithi was a non-smoker and was diagnosed in May 2013 with Stage-4 non-small cell EGFR-positive lung cancer with metastases to the spine . His cancer initially responded to chemotherapy and he resumed work as chief resident in neurosurgery , eventually completing his residency , and was in the process of interviewing for a stellar position in an academic center . He and his wife Lucy ( whom he had met at Yale ), decided to have a child and “ Cady ” Kalanithi was born on July 4 , 2014 . His cancer relapsed in spring 2014 . He continued to work on his autobiography , which in realty is an un-finished enterprise because of his premature death . The book is sprinkled with poetry , wonderful nuggets of wisdom from literature and his own reflections as a dual citizen of the worlds of the physician and the patient . The book ’ s forward is penned by Dr . Abraham Verghese and is a moving tribute to Paul , whom Verghese met in his office in February 2014 after Paul had written his memorable opinion piece “ How Long Have I Got Left ” in The New York Times .
In his Stanford Medicine essay , Paul Kalanithi wrote a moving paragraph for his infant daughter , Cady : “ When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself , provide a ledger of what you have been , and done , and meant to the world , do not , I pray , discount that you filled a dying man ’ s days with a sated joy , a joy unknown to me in all my prior years , a joy that does not hunger for more and more , but rests , satisfied . In this time , right now , that is an enormous thing .”
Paul Kalanithi who bridged the chasm between life and death has written an enormously important and devastatingly candid book which provides an exquisitely nuanced , heartfelt and thoughtful narrative with grim and sad undertones of impending death , but at the same time is an amazingly unforgettable and life-affirming perspective while confronting mortality .
M . Saleem Seyal , MD , practices Cardiovascular Diseases with Floyd Memorial Medical Group-River Cities Cardiology .
From Dr . Verghese : “…. In the contest of Paul ’ s diagnosis , I became aware of not just his mortality but my own .” He also called his writing “ stunning ” and his prose “ unforgettable ” and that “ out of his pen he was spinning gold .” After the awful diagnosis and the aftermath of dealing with its consequences in day-to-day living , Paul repeated the seven words of Samuel Beckett , “ I can ’ t go on . I ’ ll go on ,” which kept him going for almost two years after the diagnosis . Throughout his ordeal , he had the abiding support of his extended family , his physicians and their support personnel . But most important was the love and understanding , the immeasurable value of his wife , Lucy . She penned a highly emotional , candid and honest epilogue . “ Paul confronted death - examined it , wrestled with it — accepted it — as a physician and a patient ,” she writes . She offers an important guide to managing terminal illness —“ to be vulnerable , kind , generous , grateful .”
MAY 2016 17