Summary

“In Perfect Health I Begin,” pages 19 – 38. Kalanithi begins the narration of his childhood and youth with the comment that he never believed he was going to be a doctor, commenting that to him, the practice of medicine only meant absence: his father was a doctor, and spent long hours away from home caring for his patients. Kalanithi describes how his father moved his family from the affluent North East part of the United States to the less affluent Kingman, Arizona, drawn to the heat, the possibility to establish his own medical practice, and a cost of living that might enable him to pay for the education of his sons. Kalanithi also describes how, living on the edge of the Arizona desert provided him and his brother with opportunities for adventure, danger (in the form of snakes, spiders, and other creatures), and for teasing...