Life is a fast train running on a one-way street. I have thrown this question to myself and the interviewees time and again: How can I ensure that life does not derail in the face of diseases?
Similarly, I stroked the pale blue cover of this book “When Breathing Turns into Air” across the world and asked his author, Paul Caranish, a talented doctor from Stanford University and the highest award winner of the American Association of Neurosurgeons.
[I have always felt that the doctor’s work is like connecting two tracks together to make the patient’s life journey unimpeded. I never thought that my own death journey was so chaotic and disoriented.] Paul’s answer was very sincere.
Lost Promised Land
The hard day of working 14 hours a day is coming to an end. Paul will soon end his upcoming career as chief resident of Stanford Medical College. He is almost the [legal] successor to the position of tenured professor of neurosurgery and has a research office under his own leadership. His income will quadruple.
The 36-year-old Paul seems to be on the verge of reaching the peak of his life. In front of him is a vast [promised land]. Everything has changed because of cancer.
[I got the plastic bracelets that all patients must wear, put on the familiar light blue hospital gown, walked past the nurses I could name, and was admitted to a ward.]
Over the years, Paul has seen hundreds of patients here-he sits beside them, explaining the final diagnosis and complicated surgery. Congratulate the patients on their recovery and witness their happiness of returning to normal life. It was also here that he announced the death of the patient.
When the CT scanned images flashed on the computer screen, Dr. Paul’s identity was no longer important. His imaginary future, the future to be realized, and the peak of his life that he had fought for so many years to usher in all disappeared-stage 4 lung cancer.
The probability of getting lung cancer at the age of 36 is only 0.0012%, but when the cancer waving huge pliers seized Paul’s health, the disaster came 100%. Paul tried to use Kaplan-Meyer survival curve to determine how long he could live. His cancer doctor refused to discuss the issue with him and was unwilling to predict his life cycle.
How long can I live? This is a question that almost every cancer patient asks. Doctors often give a set of scientific data, Then add: It varies from person to person. If the life span is 6 months to 3 years, we will set the life span to the maximum and worry that we will be chosen by the minimum value every moment. [The anxiety of facing death is far from being alleviated by the “probability” on the data. “As a doctor, Paul is the same.
No matter what is seriously ill, it can completely change the life of a patient and the whole family.
Paul described a scene in the book when he talked with the family members of patients with malignant tumors.
The patient’s mother was sitting in a plastic chair under the fluorescent lamp and completely collapsed. The doctor said: “Your life is about to change-it has changed. This is a long journey, do you understand? You must accompany and support each other… This disease either brings you closer together or breaks you completely. So now you have to give each other unprecedented support and company.]
Paul had been watching their faces. At first, they were bloodless, dull and dull, almost wandering in the sky. Later, they became more and more cheerful and concentrated. Paul, who was sitting there, suddenly realized that the problems that combined life, death and meaning, the problems that all people had to face at some time, usually occurred in hospitals.
[If it’s a tragedy, It’s best to feed one spoon at a time. Few patients want to eat it all at once. Most of them take time to digest]. As a doctor, Paul knows very well. [Major diseases are not about changing your life, but about shattering your life. It’s more like someone just blew up your single-minded path with firebombs. Now I have to make a detour.]
Can’t move forward, still will move forward
The doctor’s identity does not make things easier:
Severe pain, a lot of painkillers, an abrupt end of career, fear, anxiety, pain and devouring waiting for the examination results.
Patient Paul saw his classmates and friends receiving job offers one after another, and saw the picture of a better life slowly unfolding among his peers. Stanford Medical College preferred its own position and had other candidates. Life began elsewhere, in the smiling faces of healthy people. He changed from a doctor to a patient, from an actor to a passive.
Do you want to take a step forward and have a child? In the absence of sufficient time, do you want to fight for your career and realize the ambition you have set for many years? [I must face the fact that I am about to die and try to find out that what made my life worth living.]
Until one morning, he woke up in pain. It was another meaningless day. Apart from breakfast, he did not know that he should be what.
[I can’t move forward, I thought to myself. But a voice in my heart immediately echoed and finished this sentence from Samuel Beckett. I will still move forward. I got out of bed and stepped forward, repeating the whole sentence over and over again: I can’t move forward, I will still move forward]. He made a decision, [I will force myself to return to the operating room]. Even a dying person.
Paul began to concentrate on the strength needed to recover from the operation. Talking about how to reintegrate into the team, reading surgical textbooks, reviewing anatomical maps and surgical procedures on the eve of the operation. He completed the first operation. The fluency and skill of the operation gradually returned to the peak, and his fingers could flexibly manipulate and adjust blood vessels with only a few microns. After a month, he was able to perform the operation almost at full load.
At the end of each day, He will feel extremely tired, The muscles of the body are like burning. He has to overcome the constant nausea, pain and fatigue. When he gets home every night, He quickly swallowed a handful of painkillers. Nine months after cancer was detected, Paul had surgery almost every day until late at night or even early in the morning. Overwork was very harmful to his body, and lung tumors kept him coughing. Paul no longer avoided death.
[I chose medical care, Part of the reason is to pursue death: Grab him, He lifted his mysterious cloak, Opposite his firm eyes… I think, In the space of life and death, I will definitely find a stage where I can not only take actions with compassion and sympathy, but also sublimate myself, stay away from the so-called material pursuit as far as possible, stay away from the trivial things of myself, reach the core of life, and face up to the choices and struggles of life and death… There, I will definitely find some transcendent and outstanding existence, right? ]
Death is only a short event that everyone can only experience once. How to carry cancer all the way before reaching the destination is a long-term process. Paul answered my question well with his own experience.
I’m all set
Accept or put down; Death, move forward. Paul and I had a carefree interview in writing. [I can’t move forward, I will still move forward.] With a tired body, he went to the operating room and continued his pursuit, far above the level of [ensuring that life does not derail].
Paul’s condition deteriorated in the second half of his cancer career, Exhausted, Turned to writing. He wrote about his life experience in fighting cancer. He pondered deeply about human nature, life and death, and medical treatment. Completing this book became his purpose in life. He reclined in a wheelchair, wrapped in a warm wool blanket, and finished the book in the last few months of his life with unimaginable concentration. I am not sad for him, but happy for him. He has made sufficient psychological preparations to truly experience the coming of death.
On his deathbed, Paul looked at his wife, On the bridge of the nose covered with BiPAP mask, His dark eyes were bright. With a soft and firm voice, Say clearly: [I’m ready]. He meant: ready to remove respiratory aids, ready to inject morphine, ready to die. Paul spent most of his life exploring and thinking about death and torturing himself whether he could face it calmly and honestly. In the end, he gave a positive answer.
On the spring day of 2015, 37-year-old Paul left his wife and daughter and passed away. His only request was to hope that the words could be published. After his death, his words “When Breathing Turns into Air” were written into a book. He dedicated the book to his newborn daughter Cady.
Paul’s wife Lucy wrote in the postscript: He did not pretend to be brave, nor did he have false beliefs that he could [overcome] or [defeat] cancer. He was calm and sincere, and expressed his grief that his planned future had become hopeless. But at the same time it has created a new future.
In a sense, this is an unfinished book because Paul’s illness deteriorated sharply. However, Paul completed his book of life and found his broader [Promised Land].
You explore the meaning of life in death,
You witnessed the breathing before death turning into the air after death.
The newcomer is still unknown, and the old days have long passed away:
When the body is exhausted, the soul is endless.
Readers, take advantage of the joy of life and walk with time.
To eternal life together.
-From Falk Gleeville’s Sonnet