Physicians wear white coats and treat illnesses, while patients wear hospital gowns and suffer them. The divisions defend doctors against reality: we will all wear the hospital gown someday and be diminished by illness. Awdish learned sooner, and far better, than most. She returned from harrowing illness with a composed narrative. On her wild plunge into the kingdom of the ill, it takes until page 177 for the defenses to fail: “My physical body was the first to transform in that space. It swelled and grew grotesquely, like Violet Beauregarde.” A physician’s body changes before they can give up the doctor’s mind and behaviors.