雙語·當(dāng)呼吸化為空氣 我們能看到的 只是生命的局部

毫無疑問，我們每個人最終能看到的，都只不過是生命的局部。醫(yī)生看到一個方面，病人看到另一個方面，工程師、經(jīng)濟學(xué)家、潛水采集珍珠的人、酗酒的人、有線電視修理工、牧羊人、印度乞丐、牧師……看到的都不盡相同。沒有什么人能完全包攬人類所有的認(rèn)知。認(rèn)知產(chǎn)生于我們所創(chuàng)造的，我們彼此之間的關(guān)系，以及我們與世界的關(guān)系之中，永遠不可能完整全面。而終極真理凌駕于一切之上，在其存在之處，播種者與收割者可以一同欣喜狂歡，正如禮拜天的《圣經(jīng)》布道的最后。因為，終極真理之中，有句話說得清楚明白：“那人撒種，這人收割。”我派你去收獲你并未付出努力的東西；辛苦勞作都是別人的，你分享了他們的勞動果實。
In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can see only a part of the picture. The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth. Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And Truth comes somewhere above all of them, where, as at the end of that Sunday’s reading, the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.

我跳下CT臺。這已經(jīng)是重返外科的第七個月了。這將是我的最后一次CT，這之后我將結(jié)束住院醫(yī)生生涯，成為一個父親，我的葬禮也終有一天會成為現(xiàn)實。
I hopped out of the CT scanner, seven months since I had returned to surgery. This would be my last scan before finishing residency, before becoming a father, before my future became real.

“想看看嗎，醫(yī)生？”掃描人員問我。
“Wanna take a look, Doc?” the tech said.

“現(xiàn)在不看，”我說，“今天我還有很多工作?！?br>“Not right now,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do today.”

已經(jīng)下午六點了，我必須去查房、探視病人，做明天的手術(shù)室安排，看看各種掃描片子，向別人口述我的臨床筆記，查查病人術(shù)后的情況……很多事等著做。晚上八點左右，我在神經(jīng)外科的辦公室坐下，旁邊就是放射照片觀測臺。我打開來，看著第二天要做手術(shù)的病人的掃描片，是兩個比較簡單的脊椎病例。最終，我輸入了自己的名字。片子出現(xiàn)在屏幕上，我不斷縮放著，仿佛孩子在隨意翻看畫冊，把新的片子和上次照的對比。一切看起來都沒有變化，原來的那些腫瘤還是一個樣。啊，等等。
It was already six p. m. I had to go see patients, organize tomorrow’s OR schedule, review films, dictate my clinic notes, check on my postops, and so on. Around eight p. m., I sat down in the neurosurgery office, next to a radiology viewing station. I turned it on, looked at my patients’ scans for the next day—two simple spine cases—and, finally, typed in my own name. I zipped through the images as if they were a kid’s flip-book, comparing the new scan to the last. Everything looked the same, the old tumors remained exactly the same. . . except, wait.

我滑動滾輪，再看了一下今天的片子。
I rolled back the images. Looked again.

一個新的腫瘤出現(xiàn)了，有點大，填滿了我的右肺中葉。看上去竟有點像一輪幾乎照亮了整個地平線的滿月。再回去看原來照的片子，我能辨認(rèn)出這個腫瘤非常微弱的跡象，原來只是幽靈一般的預(yù)兆，現(xiàn)在則完全變成了現(xiàn)實。
There it was. A new tumor, large, filling my right middle lobe. It looked, oddly, like a full moon having almost cleared the horizon. Going back to the old images, I could make out the faintest trace of it, a ghostly harbinger now brought fully into the world.

我既不憤怒，也不恐懼。本來就是如此。這是大千世界中的一個事實，就像太陽與地球的距離。我開車回家，告訴了露西。那是星期四的晚上，我們和艾瑪?shù)囊娒嬉鹊较轮芤?。露西和我坐在客廳，各自打開筆記本電腦，列出了接下來要做的事情：活檢、體檢、化療。這次的治療肯定更艱難、更痛苦，而活得久一些的可能性更為渺茫。我又想起艾略特寫過的詩句：“可是在我背后的冷風(fēng)中，我聽見／白骨在碰撞，得意的笑聲從耳邊傳到耳邊?！币苍S未來幾個星期，幾個月，甚至永遠，我都無法再重返神經(jīng)外科了。但我們覺得，這一切都可以等到周一再來考慮。今天是星期四，我已經(jīng)做好了明天手術(shù)室的安排；我決定，要去當(dāng)最后一天的住院醫(yī)生。
I was neither angry nor scared. It simply was. It was a fact about the world, like the distance from the sun to the earth. I drove home and told Lucy. It was a Thursday night, and we wouldn’t see Emma again until Monday, but Lucy and I sat down in the living room, with our lap-tops, and mapped out the next steps: biopsies, tests, chemotherapy. The treatments this time around would be tougher to endure, the possibility of a long life more remote. Eliot again:“But at my back in a cold blast I hear / the rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.” Neurosurgery would be impossible for a couple of weeks, perhaps months, perhaps forever. But we decided that all of that could wait to be real until Monday. Today was Thursday, and I’d already made tomorrow’s OR assignments; I planned on having one last day as a resident.

第二天早上五點二十分，我在醫(yī)院門口下了車，深深吸了口氣，聞著桉樹的氣味。好像還有什么氣味……是松樹嗎？以前都沒注意到呢。我把住院醫(yī)生們集合到一起，準(zhǔn)備上午的各項工作。我們先回顧了前一晚發(fā)生的事情，入院的病人，新的掃描片子，然后去查房，之后還開了“M&M”會，也就是定期召開的關(guān)于發(fā)病率與死亡率的會議，神經(jīng)外科醫(yī)生們會聚集到一起，檢討一段時間內(nèi)犯的錯誤和處理得不好的病例。開完會，我又跟病人R先生多待了幾分鐘。他得了一種罕見病，叫格斯特曼綜合征。我切除他腦內(nèi)的腫瘤后，R先生開始顯露出一系列行為缺陷：讀寫能力缺失，說不出每根手指的具體名稱，不會算術(shù)，分不清左右。這種事我之前只碰到過一次，還是八年前做醫(yī)學(xué)生，剛剛進入神經(jīng)外科實習(xí)時跟過的一個病例。和那個病人一樣，R先生也是精神愉快，情緒高昂，我懷疑這會不會也是癥狀之一，只是從來沒人當(dāng)作癥狀描述出來而已。不過R先生正在好轉(zhuǎn)：他的語言能力幾乎已經(jīng)恢復(fù)正常，算術(shù)能力也只是有一點點偏差。他完全康復(fù)的可能性很大。
As I stepped out of my car at the hospital at five-twenty the next morning, I inhaled deeply, smelling the eucalyptus and. . . was that pine? Hadn’t noticed that before. I met the resident team, assembled for morning rounds. We reviewed overnight events, new admissions, new scans, then went to see our patients before M & M, or morbidity and mortality conference, a regular meeting in which the neurosurgeons gathered to review mistakes that had been made and cases that had gone wrong. Afterward, I spent an extra couple of minutes with a patient, Mr.R. He had developed a rare syndrome, called Gerstmann’s, where, after I’d removed his brain tumor, he’d begun showing several specific deficits: an inability to write, to name fingers, to do arithmetic, to tell left from right. I’d seen it only once before, as a medical student eight years ago, on one of the first patients I’d followed on the neurosurgical service. Like him, Mr. R was euphoric—I wondered if that was part of the syndrome that no one had described before. Mr. R was getting better, though: his speech had returned almost to normal, and his arithmetic was only slightly off. He’d likely make a full recovery.

上午很快過去了。我刷手消毒，準(zhǔn)備做最后一次手術(shù)。突然間，我感覺到這個時刻意義重大。這真的是我最后一次刷手了？也許真的走到頭了。我看著肥皂水順著手臂流下來，然后流回水槽里。我走進手術(shù)室，穿好手術(shù)衣，給病人蓋上無菌布，專門扯了扯四個角，確保沒有褶皺。我希望這臺手術(shù)完美無缺。我割開他背部下方的皮膚。這個男人已經(jīng)上了年紀(jì)，脊椎退化，壓迫神經(jīng)根，造成嚴(yán)重的疼痛。我撥開脂肪，筋膜出現(xiàn)，感覺到凸起的椎骨。我割開筋膜，又順利地割開肌肉，直到眼前的傷口中只剩下閃著亮光的寬闊椎骨，干凈純粹，不沾一絲血跡。主治醫(yī)生進來了，我正在切除椎骨后面的椎板，那里有增生，再加上下面的韌帶，一起壓迫著神經(jīng)。
The morning passed, and I scrubbed for my last case. Suddenly the moment felt enormous. My last time scrubbing? Perhaps this was it. I watched the suds drip off my arms, then down the drain. I entered the OR, gowned up, and draped the patient, making sure the corners were sharp and neat. I wanted this case to be perfect. I opened the skin of his lower back. He was an elderly man whose spine had degenerated, compressing his nerve roots and causing severe pain. I pulled away the fat until the fascia appeared and I could feel the tips of his vertebrae. I opened the fascia and smoothly dissected the muscle away, until only the wide, glistening vertebrae showed up through the wound, clean and bloodless. The attending wandered in as I began to remove the lamina, the back wall of the vertebrae, whose bony overgrowths, along with ligaments beneath, were compressing the nerves.

“看著挺好，”主治醫(yī)生說，“如果你想去今天的會，我找同事進來接手做完?！蔽业谋惩从珠_始了。我之前怎么不再吃點消炎藥呢？不過，這臺手術(shù)應(yīng)該很快了，我快做完了。
“Looks good,” he said. “If you want to go to today’s conference, I can have the fellow come in and finish.” My back was beginning to ache. Why hadn’t I taken an extra dose of NSAIDs beforehand? This case should be quick, though. I was almost there.

“不用，”我說，“我想把這臺手術(shù)做完?！?br>“Naw,” I said. “I want to finish the case.”

主治醫(yī)生也刷手消毒進來了，我們一起切除了增生。他開始撥弄韌帶，下面是硬膜，里面有脊髓液和神經(jīng)根。這一步最容易犯的錯誤，就是在硬膜上弄個洞。我負責(zé)處理另一側(cè)。突然，我眼角的余光瞥見，他的手術(shù)用具旁邊有一抹藍色——硬膜開始破裂了。
The attending scrubbed in, and together we completed the bony removal. He began to pick away at the ligaments, beneath which lay the dura, which contained spinal fluid and the nerve roots. The most common error at this stage is tearing a hole in the dura. I worked on the opposite side. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw near his instrument a flash of blue—the dura starting to peek through.

“小心！”我說。此時他手上的器具已經(jīng)夾到硬膜了。清澈的脊髓液開始填滿傷口。一年多了，我還是第一次遇到漏液的情況。修補這個漏洞又需要一個小時。
“Watch out!” I said, just as the mouth of his instrument bit into the dura. Clear spinal fluid began to fill the wound. I hadn’t had a leak in one of my cases in more than a year. Repairing it would take another hour.

“把刀頭拿出來，”我說，“漏液了。”
“Get the micro set out,” I said. “We have a leak.”

等我們修補完這個漏洞，把壓迫神經(jīng)的軟組織切除之后，我的雙肩火辣辣地痛。主治醫(yī)生脫掉手術(shù)衣，向我道歉又道謝，離開了，留下我收尾。一層層組織整齊地合到一起。我又開始用尼龍線一針一針縫合皮膚。大多數(shù)外科醫(yī)生都會選擇縫合器，但我一直覺得尼龍線的感染率比較低。這個病人，這“最后一役”，要按我的想法來做。皮膚完美地縫合，沒有拉扯褶皺，仿佛這臺手術(shù)從未發(fā)生過。
By the time we finished the repair and removed the compressive soft tissue, my shoulders burned. The attending broke scrub, offered his apologies and said his thanks, and left me to close. The layers came together nicely. I began to suture the skin, using a running nylon stitch. Most surgeons used staples, but I was convinced that nylon had lower infection rates, and we would do this one, this final closure, my way. The skin came together perfectly, without tension, as if there had been no surgery at all.