months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor''''s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you''''d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
大概一年以前, 我被診斷出癌症。我在早晨七點半做了一個檢查, 檢查清楚的顯示在我的胰腺有一個腫瘤。我當時都不知道胰腺是什麼東西。醫生告訴我那很可能是一種無法治愈的癌症, 我還有三到六個月的時間活在這個世界上。我的醫生叫我回家, 然後整理好我的一切, 那就是醫生準備死亡的程序。那意味著你將要把未來十年對你小孩說的話在幾個月裏麵說完.；那意味著把每件事情都搞定, 讓你的家人會盡可能輕鬆的生活；那意味著你要說“再見了”。
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I''''m fine now.
我整天和那個診斷書一起生活。後來有一天早上我作了一個活切片檢查，醫生將一個內窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去,通過我的胃, 然後進入我的腸子, 用一根針在我的胰腺上的腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時很鎮靜,因為我被注射了鎮定劑。但是我的妻子在那裏, 後來告訴我，當醫生在顯微鏡地下觀察這些細胞的時候他們開始尖叫, 因為這些細胞最後竟然是一種非常罕見的可以用手術治愈的胰腺癌症。我做了這個手術, 現在我痊愈了。
This was the closest I''''ve been to facing death, and I hope it''''s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: