Skip to main content

What's On My Nightstand


In browsing possible books I discovered this award-winning interesting-titled autobiography by a neurosurgeon who is dying of cancer.  Paul Kalanithi is given the death sentence at the age of 35 and dies a year later.  I haven't given anything away, you'll find this out in the dust jacket.  What Dr. Kalanithi writes in between the foreword by Abraham Verghese and the Epilogue by his wife, Lucy, you will be introduced to a brilliant physician, writer and philosopher.  

Simply put, this is one of the most heartbreaking, beautifully written and thought-provoking books I've read in a while.  




Paul with his daughter Cady.  



The Kalanithi Family, Lucy, Cady and Paul.

Imagine the searing pain of just graduating 10 years of residency, experiencing the new arrival of a daughter and knowing you only have a short time to live.  Imagine a neurosurgeon who has had to tell patients and families the dreaded news of impending death and then having that same situation thrust upon you.  

This isn't light stuff.  It is the stuff of life.  It helps that Paul wrote his thesis not on medical minutia but rather of the poet Walt Whitman.  And it shows.  Asking clinically critical questions and trying to answer in poetic, philosophical prose, the beauty will remain long after Paul's death.  The last page of Paul's portion of the book is worth the cost alone.

I can't recall too many books I read a couple years ago, but I will remember this one.  What a loss to the medical community. What a loss to his family.  What a loss to his wife and daughter.  What a loss to us all.  This one belongs on anyone's nightstand.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Swim

It's Monday and the start of another work week.  Except for me.  I have the week off because the parents of my daycare charges are taking the week off, too. This is one of those wordless posts I love on Mondays so I can put my laziness in full view of loyal readers.  These pics need no words.  Why muddy the waters?   They were taken at the pool at Sinkhole Estates aka Death Valley.  The nice thing about this pool is it is heated in winter.  If one must find positives in one's situation, I suppose that is one.  But, please, no more.   

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the facts of the murder and attempted murder are most unpleasant