双语·当呼吸化为空气 我的力量继续回升

接下来的几个星期，我的力量继续回升，操作手术的流畅性与技巧也渐渐重回巅峰。我的双手重新熟练起来，能够操纵和调整那些只有几微米细的血管，又不造成任何伤害。我的手指又找回曾经的灵活。一个月后，我几乎是全负荷地在做手术了。
Over the next couple of weeks, my strength continued to improve, as did my fluency and technique. My hands relearned how to manipulate submillimeter blood vessels without injury, my fingers conjuring up the old tricks they’d once known. After a month, I was operating a nearly full load.

不过我还是有意识地限制自己。只做手术。相关的行政文件、病人看护，以及晚上和周末的病例，都交给维多利亚和其他资深高级住院医生。反正，那些技巧我已经烂熟于心了，只需要做一些更复杂精确的手术就算圆满了。每一天工作结束的时候，我都感到极度疲乏，身体肌肉火辣辣的，就像要燃烧起来，它们在慢慢恢复力量。但事实上，我却丝毫不觉得快乐。曾经在手术中获得的那种发自内心的愉悦感不知所终了，取而代之的是一种冷冰冰的专注，要去克服不断袭来的恶心、疼痛与疲乏。每天晚上回到家，我会赶紧吞下一把止痛片，然后上床，在露西身边躺下。她也恢复了全职工作，而且已经怀孕了，还没满三个月，宝宝的预产期是六月，刚好我也将在那时结束住院医生生涯。移植之前，我们给孩子的囊胚照了张相片。（“她的细胞膜长得像你。”我对露西说。）此时此刻的我，仍然想让自己的生活重回原来的轨道。
I kept myself limited to operating, leaving the administration, patient care, and night and weekend calls to Victoria and the other senior residents. I had already mastered those skills, anyway, and needed to learn only the nuances of complex operations to feel complete. I ended my days exhausted beyond measure, muscles on fire, slowly improving. But the truth was, it was joyless. The visceral pleasure I’d once found in operating was gone, replaced by an iron focus on overcoming the nausea, the pain, the fatigue. Coming home each night, I would scarf down a handful of pain pills, then crawl into bed next to Lucy, who had returned to a full work sched-ule as well. She was now in the first trimester of pregnancy, with the baby due in June, when I would complete residency. We had a photo of our child as a blastocyst, taken just before implantation. (“She has your cell membrane,” I remarked to Lucy.) Still, I was determined to restore my life to its prior trajectory.

诊断出癌症后的六个月，再次照片子，病情稳定。我又开始找工作了。既然癌症没有再扩散，我也许还能活好几年。那么，我为之辛勤奋斗多年的事业，经历了病痛的阻碍之后，似乎又重回到咫尺之遥的地方。我几乎都能听到嘹亮的胜利号角了。
Another stable scan six months after diagnosis passed, and I reopened my job search. With my cancer under control, I might have several years left. It seemed the career I had worked for years to attain, which had disappeared amid disease, was now back in reach. I could almost hear trumpets sounding a victory fanfare.

接着，我去见艾玛，谈论宏观意义上的生命，以及我自己的生命走向。我说起亨利·亚当斯，他曾比较过内燃机带来的科学力量和圣母玛利亚的存在带来的力量。现在，关于我的科学问题算是暂时尘埃落定，关于我的存在问题就成了头等大事。不过，这两种问题都是医生所关心的。最近我听说斯坦福那个外科兼科研的职位，就是那个我几乎已经被内定为“法定继承人”的职位，在我病假期间已经找到人了。我很崩溃，也跟艾玛倾诉了。
During my next visit with Emma, we talked about life and where it was taking me. I recalled Henry Adams trying to compare the scientific force of the combustion engine and the existential force of the Virgin Mary. The scientific questions were settled for now, allowing the existential ones full play, yet both were in the doctor’s purview. I had recently learned that the surgeon-scientist position at Stanford—the job for which I had been heir apparent—had been filled while I was out sick. I was crushed, and told her so.

“嗯，”她说，“这件事情还真是挺折磨人的。你肯定已经深切体会到个中滋味了。我很遗憾。”
“Well,” she said, “this doctor-professor thing can be a real grind. But you know that already. I’m sorry.”

“嗯，我觉得科研给我的兴奋点是，能花个十几二十年去做项目。现在那么长的时间我是不敢想了，所以也就不那么迫切想当科学家了。”我想安慰自己，“短短几年，也做不成什么。”
“Yeah, I guess the science that excited me was about twenty-year projects. Without that kind of time frame, I’m not sure I’m all that interested in being a scientist.” I tried to console myself. “You can’t get much done in a couple of years.”

“说得对。只要记住，你做得很好。你又开始工作了。你就要有孩子了。你在寻找自己的价值。这可不容易。”
“Right. And just remember, you’re doing great. You’re working again. You’ve got a baby on the way. You’re finding your values, and that’s not easy.”

那天晚些时候，一个比较年轻的教授——过去也是住院医生，我的好朋友——在走廊里叫住我。
Later that day one of the younger professors, a former resident and close friend, stopped me in the hallway.

“嘿，”她说，“系里开会，都在讨论拿你怎么办。”
“Hey,” she said. “There’s been a lot of discussion in faculty meetings about what to do with you.”

“拿我怎么办，为什么？”
“What to do with me, how?”

“我觉得有些教授很担心你毕业的问题。”
“I think some professors are concerned about you graduating.”

住院医生毕业有两个条件：一是达到一系列国家级和地方级的要求，这我已经做到了；二就是系里的批准。
Graduation from residency required two things: meeting a set of national and local requirements, which I’d already done, and the blessing of the faculty.

“怎么了？”我说，“不是我骄傲，我也算很好的外科医生了，比得上——”
“What?” I said. “I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I’m a good surgeon, just as good as—”

“我知道。我觉得他们只是想看到你完全承担起住院总医生的责任。那是因为他们很喜欢你。说句真心话。”
“I know. I think they probably just want to see you performing the full load of a chief. It’s because they like you. Seriously.”

我意识到她这话的确真心：过去几个月里，我的表现仅仅称得上是一个“外科技师”。我拿癌症当借口，没有履行对病人的全部职责。话说回来，癌症也真是个好借口啊，妈的。但现在我已经渐渐早出晚归，又开始看顾病人，每天工作十二小时之外，还加班四个小时。我再次时时刻刻以病人为中心了。头两天我以为自己快不行了，无时无刻不在忍着波涛汹涌的恶心、疼痛与疲乏，撑不住的时候找张没人的病床就睡了。但是，到了第三天，尽管身体还是不行，我却又开始享受工作了。与病人重新亲密接触，让我又找回了这份工作的意义。手术与看顾的间隙和查房之前，我会记得吃止吐药和非类固醇的抗炎药。的确很痛苦，但我又完全回归了。我不再去找没人的病床，而是在初级住院医生的沙发上休息，指导他们看顾我的病人；一边忍受背部痉挛，一边给他们讲课。身体上的折磨越多，完成工作的乐趣就越大。第一周结束后，我整整睡了四十个小时。
I realized it was true: For the past few months, I had been acting merely as a surgical technician. I had been using cancer as an excuse not to take full responsibility for my patients. On the other hand, it was a good excuse, damn it. But now I started coming in earlier, staying later, fully caring for the patients again, adding another four hours to a twelve-hour day. It put the patients back in the center of my mind at all times. The first two days I thought I would have to quit, battling waves of nausea, pain, and fatigue, retreating to an unused bed in down moments to sleep. But by the third day, I had begun to enjoy it again, despite the wreck of my body. Reconnecting with patients brought back the meaning of this work. I took antiemetics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)between cases and just before rounds. I was suffering, but I was fully back. Instead of finding an unused bed, I started resting on the junior residents’ couch, supervising them on the care of my patients, lecturing as I rode a wave of back spasms. The more tortured my body became, the more I relished having done the work. At the end of the first week, I slept for forty hours straight.