2006年NPR美国国家公共电台十一月-Kidney Donors Meet Recipients

This is “Day to Day,” I'm Alex Chadwick . Today, Thanksgiving, family gatherings¹ all across the country. But few will be as emotionally charged as a reunion earlier this week at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, five kidney transplant patients actually met their organ donors³ for the first time. The five donors and five recipients⁵ were all recovering after taking part in the first ever quintuple kidney transplant. NPR's Luke Burbank has more.

Sheila Thornton spent the last four years hook-up to a machine. Thanks to a condition you have probably never even heard of by its technique name. Focal segmental glomerulo sclerosis , in other words late stage kidney failure. During those four years Thornton was on the list for a transplant but a suitable match never appeared which is where the machines came in. First she was going to a Maryland hospital three days a week, five hours a day where she was hooked up for dialysis. Eventually though even that stopped working.
With different problems, with infections, then the grafts⁶ that they put in, I switched to what they call peritoneal dialysis and you, I did it at home, ah, nine hours every night. But it's still that it’s not the same as having a kidney.

As Gerald Loevner of Sarasota, Florida knows all too well. After a series of open heart surgeries he suffered kidney failure too. His wife Sandy says it affects every aspect of your life.

It's amazing what you can't have including water; your foods have to be limited. We try to keep Gerald to three and a half cups of liquid a day, that includes anything that can turn to liquid, like jello⁷.

Gerald Loevner was also on the transplant list and Sandy his wife was happy to give him her kidney. But they were not an ideal match. A fairly common situation says Doctor Robert Montgomery who directs the Johns Hopkins Transplant Center.

We had four, err⁸, different couples that came to us and each had a willing donor² but there was an incompatibility⁹ between the donor and the recipient⁴.
Things were not looking great for these people or for Sheila Thornton who by now was just hoping to get a kidney from a cadaver¹⁰ also not the ideal situation.

And that's where Honey Rothstein came in.
That's right. Honey Rothstein, a 48 years old IRS employee from West Virginia who decided¹¹ 2 Thanksgivings ago, that she wanted to donate a kidney to someone who needed it in honor of her late daughter.
Sometimes you just have to do what, what feels good in your heart. I mean, you do what's right in your heart and you think, you know, maybe I can, I can do something good for somebody.

Rothstein probably had no idea though just how much good she was about to do. You see, Honey Rothstein's kidney fit like the missing piece to a puzzle, it matched a woman named Christian¹² Jantzi of Maine that meant Jantzi 's adoptive mother Florence could give her kidney to a better match. A guy named Jeorge Brooks¹³. In turn, Jeorge Brooks's wife Sharon was able to donate her kidney to a more ideal candidate, a fellow name Gary Persell, whose wife Leslie then gave her kidney to Gerald Loevner, the guy from Sarasota, which meant his wife Sandy could now give her kidney to, you guessed it, Sheila Thornton.

So Mrs. Thonrto so far how is the Sandy Loevner's kidney doing? How's it feeling?
Oh wow. Ha.... It is wonderful. It is wonderful.
Does that make you kind of proud, Sandy, that you were, you know you were taking good care that kidney for 63 years, and now someone else is getting to use it?
It does, I got to tell you that lady is used to a lot of water, that’s all I can tell you. We live in Florida where it's hot and that kidney has been well exercised.

All ten surgeries were performed on the same afternoon last week by Doctor Montgomery and his Johns Hopkin team. It took 12 surgeons, six operating rooms and a staff of over 100, but in the end they'd managed a quintuple kidney transplant which by all accounts is some kind of new record. Records aside , doctor Montgomery says there is a legitimate¹⁴ reason all the surgeries needed to happen at once.

To remove the variable of , you know, something happening that would hold-up some of the operation and you know someone might donate a kidney and their loved one not get one.
Doctor Montgomery says it was only after he'd finished all the surgeries as he looked at a complicated diagram of who got which kidney that it hit him.
I mean that, I will never forget that, that moment when I actually had the realization¹⁵ of what we had accomplished¹⁶. It was, ah, it was very cool.

So cool, in fact, that Doctor Montgomery says that one moment made all those years of medical school, all those sleep deprived hours as a resident worth it. And for the patients all of whom are recovering well, the record-breaking procedure means freedom from dialysis machines, freedom to drink more than 3.5 cups liquid a day and a lifelong bond with someone who until last week was a complete stranger. Luke Burbank, NPR news.

Thank you, Loevner, I'll be in touch, Sheila, thank you. Thank you for making Thanksgiving special.
Thank you.
Bye, Honey
------------------------------
quintuple
五的, 五倍的, 五部分组成的
sclerosis
[医]硬化症, 硬化, 硬结
glomerulosclerosis
n.肾血管球硬化症
dialysis
[化] 透析, 分离,血液透析
peritoneal.
腹膜的
cadaver
死尸, 尸体
IRS
abbr.
Internal Revenue Service 美国国税局
by all accounts
adv.
据大家所说

1 gatherings   

聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集

参考例句：

• His conduct at social gatherings created a lot of comment. 他在社交聚会上的表现引起许多闲话。
• During one of these gatherings a pupil caught stealing. 有一次，其中一名弟子偷窃被抓住。

2 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

3 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。

5 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

6 grafts   

移植( graft的名词复数 )； 行贿； 接穗； 行贿得到的利益

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。
• Her burns were treated with skin grafts. 她的烧伤是用植皮方法进行治疗的。

7 jello   

n.凝胶物，果冻

参考例句：

• We have ice cream,pie,cake or jello.我们要冰淇淋、馅饼、蛋糕或是果冻。
• She likes jello very much.她很喜欢吃果冻。

8 err   

vi.犯错误，出差错

参考例句：

• He did not err by a hair's breadth in his calculation.他的计算结果一丝不差。
• The arrows err not from their aim.箭无虚发。

9 incompatibility   

n.不兼容

参考例句：

• One cause may be an Rh incompatibility causing kernicterus in the newborn. 一个原因可能是Rh因子不相配引起新生儿的脑核性黄疸。
• Sexual incompatibility is wide-spread in the apple. 性的不亲合性在苹果中很普遍。

10 cadaver   

n.尸体

参考例句：

• Examination of a cadaver is to determine the cause of death.尸体解剖是为了确认死亡原因。
• He looked down again at the gaping mouth of the cadaver.他的眼光不由自主地又落到了死人张大的嘴上。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

13 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

15 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

16 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。