化疗了五年，竟然是误诊

A Colorado man claims that he was on intense chemotherapy and painkillers for five long years, after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer by multiple doctors, a cancer that he recently learned never existed.

美国科罗拉多州一名男子近日声称，在被多名医生诊断为罕见的癌症之后，他长期接受化疗与服用止痛药至今已有五年之久，但他最近才得知，所谓的癌症从未存在过。

The living nightmare of James Salaz, a resident of Montrose, in Colorado, began five years ago, when he went to a hospital to have an intense pain deep under his armpit investigated. His doctor told him that tests revealed two abnormalities inside his left lung. After undergoing a couple of open lung biopsies, Salaz was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, a rare form of cancer that causes cells to build up in parts of the body, damaging tissues and ultimately leading to death. Devastated by the news, he visited doctors in Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction and Denver, and they all confirmed that he had Langerhans. It turns out they were all wrong.

五年前，居住在科罗拉多州蒙特罗斯的James Salaz开始了这场旷日持久的现实噩梦。当他因腋窝深处严重疼痛而前往医院检查时，医生告诉他在其左肺内发现了两处畸形物。

经过几次开肺活检之后，Salaz被诊断出患有郎格罕细胞组织细胞增生症，这是一种罕见的癌症，可导致细胞在身体某处积聚，破坏组织并最终导致人体死亡。

听到这个晴天霹雳之后，Salaz又去拜访了蒙特罗斯、三角洲、大章克申以及丹佛等地的医生，他们全都证实Salaz确实患有此病。但现在事实证明，他们全都错了。

So he just kept popping pain killers to cope with the pain caused by the intense chemotherapy, hoping that it would save his life. But the thing was that he wasn’t getting any better. Last year, he went to see Dr. Choon-Kee Lee (who he considered his main doctor) at Montrose Hospital to ask why things didn’t seem to be improving, but learned that Lee had been dismissed by the hospital. For some strange reason, they hadn’t even bothered to notify his patients, so he only learned that his doctor was no longer working there while waiting for his appointment in the waiting room.

为了挽救自己的生命，他只能不停地服用止痛药以应对高强度化疗所引起的疼痛。但问题是，他的情况并没有因此有所改善。去年，他前往蒙特罗斯医院寻找Choon-Kee Lee医生(他口中的主治医生)询问自己的病况为何没有改善时，却得知Lee被该医院解雇了。

But Dr. Lee’s dismissal turned out to be James Salaz’s saving grace (if you can even call it that) as it meant he had to look for a new doctor. And it was this new doctor who dropped the bomb about his diagnosis, last year.

不知什么原因，该医院甚至无心去通知该医生的病人，所以直到他在候诊室等待预约时，才得知自己的医生已不在那里工作。

Unfortunately for Salaz, his true diagnosis appears to be much more difficult to treat due to a severe lack of rheumatologists in western Colorado. He called the office of the doctor he was assigned to and they confirmed that they had gotten his referral, but that it will probably be a year before he can actually come in for a checkup.

不幸的是，对于Salaz来说，由于科罗拉多州西部严重缺少风湿病学专家，想要诊断出他的真正病因似乎还很困难，他可能还需要等待一年时间才能进行体检。

In the meantime, James Salaz still has to deal with the aftermath of years of unnecessary chemotherapy. He has been diagnosed with pancreatitis, which doctors say was caused by the strong cancer drugs, and he has already been in the hospital for it twice.

与此同时，James Salaz目前仍然需要处理多年不必要化疗所造成的后果。他被诊断出患有胰腺炎，医生表示这是由强力抗癌药所引发，而且他已经两次因此住院治疗。