双语·当呼吸化为空气 我和艾玛每两周见一次

我和艾玛每两周见一次，一开始，我俩的讨论就从医学方面的问题（“皮疹感觉好些了吗？”）上升到更具有存在主义意义的话题。通常来说，得了癌症的人都会选择休假，和家人一起，慢慢接受现实。这也是我的选择之一。
At our first of several biweekly appointments, Emma’s and my discussion tended from the medical (“How’s the rash?”) to the more existential. The traditional cancer narrative—that one ought to recede, spend time with family, and settle one’s toes in the peat—was one option.

“很多人一查出癌症就彻底辞职了，”她说，“但有的人又更加全身心地投入工作。无论怎样都行。”
“Many people, once diagnosed, quit work entirely,” she said. “Others focus on it heavily. Either way is okay.”

“我早就给自己做了四十年的职业规划，头二十年是外科医生兼研究人员，后面二十年去写东西。但是现在我基本上就在‘后面二十年’了，也不知道该做什么了。”
“I had mapped out this whole forty-year career for myself—the first twenty as a surgeon-scientist, the last twenty as a writer. But now that I am likely well into my last twenty years, I don’t know which career I should be pursuing.”

“嗯，这个我没法说。”她说，“我只能说，如果你愿意的话，可以重返手术台，但你必须搞清楚，对你来说最重要的是什么。”
“Well, I can’t tell you that,” she said. “I can only say that you can get back to surgery if you want, but you have to figure out what’s most important to you.”

“如果我知道自己还剩多少时间，那就比较容易决定。如果我还有两年，那我就去写东西。如果还有十年，那我就回去做手术，做研究。”
“If I had some sense of how much time I have left, it’d be easier. If I had two years, I’d write. If I had ten, I’d get back to surgery and science.”

“你也知道，我没法跟你说到底还有多少年。”
“You know I can’t give you a number.”

是啊，我知道。她经常“打太极”，说我要自己去找到自己的价值。我觉得这是在逃避：好吧，可以啊，反正我也从来不跟病人说具体的时间，但我可是一直都很清楚病人该做些什么的呀，不然我怎么去做那些生死攸关的决定？接着我想起我犯过的错误：有一次，我建议一家人撤掉儿子的生命维持系统。结果两年后，那对父母又出现在我面前，给我看一段网上的视频，是他们的儿子在弹钢琴。他们还给我带来了杯子蛋糕，感谢我挽救了那孩子的生命。
Yes, I knew. It was up to me, to quote her oft-repeated refrain, to find my values. Part of me felt this was a cop-out: okay, fine, I never gave out specific numbers to patients, either, but didn’t I always have a sense of how the patient would do? How else did I make life-anddeath decisions? Then I recalled the times I had been wrong: the time I had counseled a family to withdraw life support for their son, only for the parents to appear two years later, showing me a YouTube video of him playing piano, and delivering cupcakes in thanks for saving his life.

我又开始和好些相关的医疗人士定期见面，和肿瘤专家的约诊当然是最重要的。但这还不够，露西坚持带我去见一个专门针对癌症病人的夫妻关系专家。专家的诊室没有窗户，露西和我坐在并排的扶手椅中，详细讨论了我的病会对两人现在和将来的生活造成何种影响，还有未来将面对的已知与未知的痛苦，对生活做出计划的困难，以及彼此陪伴的必要。说实在的，癌症，其实从一定程度上拯救了我们的婚姻。
My oncology appointments were the most important of many new appointments with a variety of healthcare providers, but they weren’t the only ones. At Lucy’s insistence, we began seeing a couples therapist who specialized in cancer patients. Sitting in her windowless office, in side-by-side armchairs, Lucy and I detailed the ways in which our lives, present and future, had been fractured by my diagnosis, and the pain of knowing and not knowing the future, the difficulty in planning, the necessity of being there for each other. In truth, cancer had helped save our marriage.

“嗯，在这件事情上，你俩比我见过的任何夫妻处理得都要好。”第一次约诊结束后，专家说，“我还真没什么建议可以给你们的。”
“Well, you two are coping with this better than any couple I’ve seen,”the therapist said at the end of our first session. “I’m not sure I have any advice for you.”

走出诊室的时候，我大笑起来，至少我又在什么事情上杰出了一把。这么多年帮助那些绝症患者，还是有收获的！我转身看着露西，本以为她也在微笑，但她却不停摇着头。
I laughed as we walked out—at least I was excelling at something again. The years of ministering to terminally ill patients had borne some fruit! I turned to Lucy, expecting to see a smile; instead, she was shaking her head.

“你没听明白吗？”她握住我的双手，“如果我们就是做得最好的，那说明没有好转的余地了。”
“Don’t you get it?” she said, taking my hand in hers. “If we’re the best at this, that means it doesn’t get better than this.”