When breath becomes air / Paul Kalanithi ; foreword by Abraham Verghese.

Cover: When breath becomes air : what makes life worth living in the face of death.

Foreword / by Abraham Verghese -- Prologue -- In perfect health I begin -- Cease not till death -- Epilogue / by Lucy Kalanithi.

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. This is the story of Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student in search of what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and finally into a patient and a new father.