In Paul Kalanithi Prologue, Breath Becomes Air, he talks about his end of education and looking forward to becoming a neurosurgeon. After many years of studying and working to get to where he is now, he has the whole world ahead of him. Until Paul beings to have signs of cancer, leading him to have to put his life on hold to deal with his downfall.

   In the prologue, Paul helps his readers gain more context and understanding through the details he give the reader. A few consists of his traveling experience, long work hours, relationship with his wife, reading his medical reports, the trip with his friends, and the hospital room where he was admitted. To begin when we learn about Paul and his medical education, how long hours and hard taxing work affected him. He began to lose weight rapidly, and experience significant back pain. He believed that it only formed the work he was doing for the residency. Later he then talks about how his back pain increased significantly, to the point where when he was traveling. On a bench was lying down in agonizing pain holding back his tears. Also, the weight loss has gone from losing a few pounds to Paul weighing 175 to 145. This dramatic shift from talking about him losing weight to losing 30 pounds in a tiny window of time with no change in diet and how he was crying form the back pain he was experiencing.

   Another was when he was on his trip to New York to visit his friends. The entire time he was frail and only wanted to sleep. Later leading him to talking with his friend over a drink explaining to him that he very well could have cancer. Before him leaving he began having marriage troubles. His wife was looking at possible types of cancer for his age group. This lead to her believing that he was worried about his cancer when she was also anxious as well. She left for a little while, and after coming to terms learning from him that he does have cancer, the ended up staying together and helping Paul though this terrible time. This is another example of them he was on his couch telling his wife and her putting his head off his chest saying I love you. This brings the reader into his living room as if he or she was with the two of them experience the same thing.

   The last examples that bring the reader deeper into Paul’s experience were when he was admitted into the hospital. He talks about how he was brought into the same room that he would treat or talk to his patients when he was in residency. He explains different examples of this including, telling patients they are cured of a disease or pronouncing someone dead. At this point he goes into detail talking about his life, and how he looked forward to so many of his goals as a father, husband, and doctor; then leaving the prologue off as saying how it was all over and how he was going to deal with this terrible calamity in his life now.

   In the second peace, The Story of My Life, it talks about how we used stories in our everyday life; explaining our own life stories and how each day of our lives add to that story. Stories help us as a community and ourselves by telling our experiences. At times we tell stories to understand better what happens to us, not just to tell someone else what happened. Trying to under our world and lives is not an easy task to handle, but when we talk to other people about here stories or experiences then that could have an effect on us and how was do things as we go forward. If we use stories to help shape us as people, then that will affect our personalities. When we tell stories, everyone has a different way of doing that, and that’s what makes it so unique. These different ways of telling these stories are our personality so when we hear or experience new stories that could affect the way we tell them later on and in connection change our personalities.