文字难度：★★★
Having cancer is like being kidnapped, being 1)harried to a dark and deadly place by an unexpected 2)assailant who has pressed the cold barrel of a gun to your skull. You might be strong enough or lucky enough to escape, to survive. Then again, you might not. And when you're 3)cornered in that 4)bleak and narrow place, you can't help but think about mortality. Will I be alive in six months? In six years? Sixty years?
罹患癌症就像是被人绑架了一样，如同某个歹徒出其不意地把你劫掠到一个漆黑可怕的地方，用冰冷的枪口指着你的头。你可能会因为强壮有余或者运气很好而逃过一劫，幸存下来。又或许，你没那么幸运。当你被逼入那阴暗又无处可逃的角落时，你就会情不自禁地想到死亡。我还能再活六个月？六年？还是六十年？
But after going through Stage 3 5)prostate cancer and its treatment, I find that I no longer fear death. Post-cancer, more than ever, I am 6)stung by the fact that I am here, that I am this I, this7)improbable soul. For me, death is no longer abstract. I have wrestled with death, 8)in the guise of the cancer that 9)fed on my body. And I agreed to let death, in the form of 10)radiation, 11)pulse into my flesh so that it could kill my 12)mutinous cancer cells.
然而，在经历了前列腺癌的第三个治疗阶段后，我发现自己不再害怕死亡了。患了癌症之后，我越发深刻地认识到这样一个事实——我还活着，我就是这样的我，一个连自己都觉得不可思议的灵魂。对我来说，死亡不再抽象。我曾与之搏斗过，它曾披上癌症的外衣蚕食着我的身体。我同意死神以放射线脉冲的形式打入我的身体，从而杀死我体内那些桀骜不驯的癌细胞。
I have even had the privilege—and I don't use that word 13)lightly—to watch death at work inside my body. I was hospitalized for six weeks in 1984 with an acute case of 14)ulcerative colitis. Before my entire 15)ravaged 16)colon was removed, my doctors let me peer through the 17)scope and take a look at it as it died. The colon was18)ablaze, like a 19)bone-dry 20)bale of hay soaked in gasoline and then set afire. I saw yellow-white 21)explosions in my 22)gut, and it seemed as if23)magma 24)seeped through my 25)bowels.
我甚至有过这样的“特权”——用这个词毫不夸张——亲眼目睹死神在体内发威的过程。1984年，我曾经因为得了急性溃疡性结肠炎而住院六个星期。在切除那整个溃烂的结肠之前，主治医生们让我透过观察仪器看看那段坏死的组织。只见那段结肠泛着焰光，像一捆极干燥的干草浸到汽油里后被点燃了似的。我看见黄白色的汁液散布在我的肠子里，看上去就像稠液从我的肠道里渗出来似的。