國家地理:移植的臉如何改變了一名女子的生活(9)
Over the course of many surgeries, Gastman and a team of specialists stabilized Katie and patched her face. They removed and repaired shattered bones. To create a nasal passage and protect her brain, Gastman made a rudimentary nose and upper lip from her thigh tissue rolled up inside out. For a chin and lower lip, he used a piece of her Achilles tendon. The doctors fashioned a new lower jawbone from titanium and a piece of her fibula with flesh still attached, using as a guide a 3D model made from a scan of Olivia's jaw. To move Katie's eyes closer together, they attached to her skull a distraction device, adjusting it day by day. It was challenging work, and Gastman was proud of it.
在多次整形手術(shù)過程中，加斯特曼和專家組穩(wěn)定了凱蒂的病情，并給她的臉上“打了補(bǔ)丁”。他們?nèi)〕霾⑿迯?fù)破碎的骨頭。為了形成鼻道并保護(hù)她的大腦，加斯特曼用凱蒂的大腿組織做了個(gè)鼻子和上嘴唇，并讓它們從里面翻出來。至于下巴和下唇，他用的是凱蒂的跟腱。醫(yī)生們用鈦金屬打造了一個(gè)新的下頜骨，并在她的腓骨上植入了一塊肉，用姐姐麥克凱下巴的掃描圖制作了3D模型作為參考。為了讓凱蒂的眼睛靠得更近，他們把分散裝置固定在她的頭骨上，每天都在調(diào)整它。這是一項(xiàng)具有挑戰(zhàn)性的工作，加斯特曼為此感到自豪。
Katie had never seen this face, but she had come to know it by touch—the crooked tube of flesh in the center, the bulbous chin. She knew her eyes looked as though someone had grabbed her by the cheeks and jerked up on one side and down on the other. She called this face, the second of her young life, Shrek.
凱蒂從來沒有見過要更換的這張臉，但她是通過觸摸中間彎曲的肉管，即球狀下巴加以了解的。她知道自己的眼睛看起來就像是有人抓住了她的臉頰，一邊往上拉，另一邊往下拉。她把這張臉叫做史萊克，這是她年輕生命中的第二張臉。
For Katie, 2014 was a lost year. She remembers nothing of her suicide attempt or the surgeries that followed. Her parents had to tell her what happened. It shocked her. "I never thought of doing that ever before, and so on hearing about it, I just didn't know how to handle it," she told me. "I felt so guilty that I had put my family through such pain. I felt horrible."
對凱蒂來說，2014年是失落的一年。她不記得自己的自殺企圖或隨后的手術(shù)，父母不得不告訴她發(fā)生了什么事，這讓她感到很震驚。她說:“我以前從來沒有想過要這樣做，等我聽說這件事的時(shí)候，我都不知道該如何處理。我感到非常內(nèi)疚，我讓我的家人經(jīng)歷了這樣的痛苦，這實(shí)在太可怕了！”
The Stubblefields never returned to Oxford. Robb and Alesia moved to the Ronald McDonald House near the clinic, into a room about the size of a studio apartment with a makeshift kitchen. Katie qualified for Medicaid, and the clinic paid for much of her care with federal funding to study face transplants. For daily living, the Stubblefields subsisted on the kindness of others—family and friends gave them money, held fund-raisers, and started online campaigns. Robb picked up odd jobs, painting houses or working security.
斯圖布爾菲爾德一家再也沒有回到牛津。羅柏和阿萊西亞搬到了診所附近的Ronald McDonald House，住進(jìn)了公寓大小的房間，里面有個(gè)臨時(shí)廚房。凱蒂獲得了領(lǐng)取醫(yī)療補(bǔ)助的資格，診所用聯(lián)邦資金支付了她的大部分治療費(fèi)用，包括研究面部移植。在日常生活中，斯圖布爾菲爾德一家依靠別人的接濟(jì)生活，家人和朋友給他們錢，舉辦募捐活動(dòng)，并在網(wǎng)上發(fā)起活動(dòng)。羅柏做零工、油漆房子或保安工作。
