When Breath Becomes Air

Chronologically, this section begins where the Prologue ends, with Paul and Lucy together in the hospital room, staring at the CT scan images. As they go through a flurry of logistical information–calls to family, Paul’s suggestion to Lucy to remarry–Paul realizes he has shifted from being a caretaker to being a patient, that he won’t be able to resume his residency, and that all he has been striving for will go unrealized.

Paul’s family gathers in his hospital room while Emma Hayward, his oncologist, stops by to introduce herself. He asks her to discuss the Kaplan-Meier survival curves, to which she responds, “absolutely not” (122). She says this information will come later, that for now she has just come to meet them. She even suggests that Paul may be able to go back to work. His family reaches out to the medical network to find the best oncologist in the country and discovers that all arrows point toward Emma.

In the two days leading up to their first full appointment, Paul rests. He considers an earlier version of himself, reflecting on how his future had seemed so different then. Paul has become so sick that getting up to use the restroom is no longer automatic; it has become a task.