【英语语言学习】与癌症对抗

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

In Nashville this weekend, there's an exhibition of masks, not the kind that are used to hide, disguise or play dress-up. These have been worn by people with head or neck cancer. The plastic and mesh¹ masks are used during radiation treatment and they're molded precisely² to a patient's face. Over the course of their treatment, cancer patients form intense relationships with these ghostly-white likenesses of themselves. Emily Siner from member station WPLN in Nashville reports.

EMILY SINER, BYLINE³: Every 15 minutes for 10 hours a day, patients walk into the radiation room at Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. They pick up their mask, walk to a machine and lie down underneath⁴. Nurses fit the mask over the patient's face and shoulders and then snap it down.

(SOUNDBITE OF SNAPPING)

BARBARA BLADES: It was awful. It was awful to have your head bolted to a table, not being able to move, not being able to move your head.

OSCAR SIMMONS: I can remember laying their thinking that I'm glad that I'm not claustrophobic.

BOB MEAD⁵: I sort of fibbed to myself. I thought if I really had to, I could sit up and pull the mask off.

SINER: That's Barbara Blades, who was diagnosed with cancer in her lymph nodes and her tongue; Oscar Simmons, who had cancer in his tonsils; and Bob Mead, who had salivary⁶ gland⁷ cancer. Mead really could not have pulled up his mask. It's designed to restrain a patient so that the radiation targets the exact same spots every day down to the millimeter. It's made of a kind of white, plastic mesh that forms to a patient's face. It's see-through but it looks almost human, like a ghostly person frozen in place. Steve Travis had tumors on his throat and neck and went through several weeks of radiation. He says the treatment didn't bother him at first.

STEVE TRAVIS: Honestly, when I was under the mask, I actually found it comforting. I used that to say Our Fathers and Hail Marys. And when it was over, it was over. After it was over, I became very angry at the mask because it sort of represented everything that had happened over the last, you know, four months. And so I destroyed it.

SINER: He took it out to a family farm in West Tennessee and set it up next to a tree. He shot at with two magazines from a 45 automatic. And then, for good measure, he burned it.

BLADES: I kept it for the longest time, and it just sat there.

SINER: That's Barbara Blades, the woman with tongue cancer.

BLADES: And I couldn't bring myself to throw it away because I had radiation five days a week for seven weeks. It was a part of me for that amount of time.

SINER: Blades ended up keeping the radiation mask in her garage. She finally threw it out after it was damaged during a flood four years ago. Bob Mead, who had salivary gland cancer, held onto his mask with a sense of pride.

MEAD: It's shaped like me. It fits me. It's like a favorite pair of jeans. People may not think of a mask that fondly, but there's a familiarity to it. But the mask is actually part of me, and it's that badge of honor that I have survived what is believed to have killed my cancer.

SINER: Oscar Simmons, who had tonsil cancer, gave his mask to an artist who turned it into a sculpture of a mountain with a whole landscape around it.

SIMMONS: Its goal is to restrain and they're going to expand. And so it's a thing of contrasts I guess.

SINER: As for Mead's mask, he still hasn't decided⁸ what to do with it.

MEAD: Mines actually sitting in my sun porch on a shelf.

SINER: Every once in a while, he says, he'll pick it up and put it on his face. It still fits. And that's OK, he says, because now he's free to take it off. For NPR News in Nashville, I'm Emily Siner.

1 mesh   

n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络

参考例句：

• Their characters just don't mesh.他们的性格就是合不来。
• This is the net having half inch mesh.这是有半英寸网眼的网。

2 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

5 mead   

n.蜂蜜酒

参考例句：

• He gave me a cup of mead.他给我倒了杯蜂蜜酒。
• He drank some mead at supper.晚饭时他喝了一些蜂蜜酒。

6 salivary   

adj. 唾液的

参考例句：

• Small doses depress salivary and bronchial secretion and sweating. 小剂量可抑制唾液分泌、支气管分泌及出汗。
• The five pairs of salivary glands open into the mouth. 有五对唾液腺通向口腔。

7 gland   

n.腺体，(机)密封压盖，填料盖

参考例句：

• This is a snake's poison gland.这就是蛇的毒腺。
• Her mother has an underactive adrenal gland.她的母亲肾上腺机能不全。

8 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。