面部移植：毁容的41岁消防员喜获26岁新容颜 [美国媒体]

Face Transplant Surgery Gives 41-Year-Old Former Firefighter a New 26-Year-Old Face

面部移植——毁容的41岁前消防员喜获26岁新容颜

Being a volunteer firefighter meant everything to Pat Hardison, but when an accident during a rescue mission left his face severely burned, he thought he would never be the same again.

作为一名志愿消防员，Pat Hardison非常热爱这份工作，但一场突如其来的火场意外却令他面部严重烧伤，让他以为再也回不到从前。

“It was terrible,” Hardison, 41, told “Nightline." “I mean, I left home one day a normal dad, leaving to go to work, just a blonde-haired, blue-eyed-- that had everything going, I thought, and just like that everything changed drastically.”

“那场意外真的太恐怖了，”现年41岁的Hardison说，“那本是非常普通的一天，我离开家去工作，就是那种金色头发、蓝色眼睛的普通父亲的样子——突然间，在我感觉，这一切发生了天翻地覆般的改变。”

But 14 years later, Hardison got the call to come to NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, where a surgical team, led by renown reconstructive surgeon Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who is the chair of the hospital’s Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, would prepare him for the most extensive face transplant ever performed.

但在14年后，Hardison接到了一通来自纽约大学蓝贡医学中心的电话，叫他来接受一台有史以来最大规模的面部移植手术。负责这台手术的团队由该医院整形外科主任Eduardo Rodriguez医生领导。

It was a procedure so extreme and so risky that his doctors warned him he only had a 50-50 chance of surviving it. But it was a risk he was willing to take for the chance to get his life back and feel normal again.

这台手术极度复杂，而且极度危险，医生警告Hardison说，他只有一半的几率可以在手术中活下来。但是再大的风险Hardison都愿意去承担，只要有机会能够重新变回一个普通人，重新拥有意外发生之前的生活。

“I prayed daily that there would be a miracle to help me get through this, and you know, it’s all in God’s timing,” Hardison said.

“我每天都祈祷希望有奇迹发生，结果你看，上帝真的给我安排了一个，” Hardison说。



Pat Hardison is shown here holding his daughter in this family photo taken before the 2001 fire.

图为Pat Hardison抱着女儿的合影，摄于2001年火场意外以前。

In 2001, Hardison and his second wife Chrissi were raising their three children in his hometown of Senatobia, Mississippi. At 27, he was a charming, successful salesman who ran the family tire business, but his real passion was working with the local volunteer fire department where he was a captain.

2001年的时候，Hardison和妻子Chrissi在老家密西西比州Senatobia抚养着3个子女。当年27岁的Hardison是一个魅力四射的成功商人，经营着自家的轮胎生意。但他真正全身心投入的，是做为一名志愿消防员在当地消防局的工作，当时他已经是志愿消防员的队长。

“It was my way of life, that was what I did,” he said. “I didn’t do it to make a living, I did it because I loved it... at this department it’s different. It’s not like a fire department that volunteers, we’re a brotherhood.”

“当时，那就是我的生活方式，我选择了这条路，”他说，“我当志愿消防员不是为了养家糊口，而只是因为我热爱这份工作……特别是在我们与众不同的消防局。与其说是消防局，不如说是一个兄弟会。”

It was a brotherhood made up of the kind of men willing to rush headlong into a burning home, which is exactly what Hardison did on Sept. 5, 2001.

正是这种兄弟情义让这些男人可以毫不犹豫地冲进火海，正如Hardison在2001年9月5日做的那样。

“It was just a normal day,” he said. “Just like every other fire... we went in looking for a lady.”

“那一天没什么特别的，”他说，“就像其他那些火灾一样……我们冲进火场搜寻一位被困的女士。”

Hardison and his fellow firefighters got the call to respond to a house fire, and when they arrived, he entered the building with three other firefighters. He doesn’t remember much of what happened next, except the ceiling collapsing around him.

Hardison和他的队友们那天接到了一起房屋起火报警，当他们赶到现场时，Hardison和另外三名消防员一起进入了起火的建筑。之后发生的事情他记住的不多，除了崩塌的天花板掉落身边的那个瞬间。

“[My mask] was melting to my face,” Hardison said. “My hose [was] already melted.”

“（我的消防面具）融化在了我的脸上，”Hardison说，“我的水龙带也已经融化了。”

He pulled the mask off, held his breath and closed his eyes, which doctors say saved his throat and lungs from smoke inhalation damage and from losing his vision. He doesn’t remember exactly how he managed to escape the inferno but by the time he got out, he was unrecognizable.

他把面具扯了下来，屏住呼吸，闭上眼睛。医生事后说，正是这些举动保住了他的视力，并且使他的喉咙和肺免于被吸入的烟摧毁。他不记得自己是怎么从火海里逃出来的，当他逃出来时，已经被烧得面目全非。

“There was nothing left of his face to tell you who he was,” said Bricky Cole, one of Hardison’s friends and another volunteer firefighter on-scene that day.

“他脸上什么都没有了，你根本认不出他是谁，”Hardison的好友，同在现场的另一名志愿消防员Bricky Cole如是说。

His friends rushed to save Hardison’s life, but they didn’t realize who they were working on until he was being loaded into an ambulance.

他的朋友们虽然争分夺秒地抢救了他的生命，但是直到Hardison被抬进了救护车，他们都没有认出来他是谁。

“He pulled me down over his face… and said, ‘you got to take care of Chrissi and the kids,’ and my world shut down,” said Cole. “You never think it’s going to happen to you or yours. We closed the door on that ambulance and I figured it was the last time I would ever see him alive.”

“他拉住我，直至我弯腰贴近他的脸……然后我听见他说：'替我照顾Chrissi和孩子们'，我瞬间震惊了，”Cole说，“你永远无法想象这种事会发生在你或者你的亲友身上，在我们关上救护车门的那一瞬间，我想着这可能是永别。”

Hardison spent the next 63 days at the hospital recovering from the burns that took his scalp, ears, eyelids, nose and lips. His entire face was gone. When he got home, Hardison said his three children, Alison who was 6, Dalton who was 3 and Averi who was 2 years old at the time, were terrified of him.

Hardison在接下来的63天里接受了医院的治疗，虽然烧伤治好了，但是却失去了头皮、耳朵、眼皮、鼻子和嘴唇。他变成了一个没有脸的人。当他出院回到家时，他的三个孩子——6岁的Alison、3岁的Dalton和2岁的Averi——都被他吓到了。

“My kids were scared to death of me. You can't blame them. They’re young kids,” he said. “And you got to realize … we always did stuff every day, and all of the sudden that changed just overnight.”

“我的孩子们被我吓得要死。这怪不得他们。他们只是小孩子，”他说，“你必须认识到……以前被我们视为平常的生活，一夜之间全都改变了。”

His oldest child Alison said she didn’t realize what her dad had gone through until the first time she saw him, “and I remember going up the house and my mom and step-dad literally had to drag me into the house because I was scared,” she said, fighting back tears.

他的大女儿Alison说，她根本不知道爸爸经历了什么，直到见到了出院后的他。“我记得冲出了屋子，妈妈和继父简直是生拉硬拽才把我拖回去，因为我实在是吓坏了，”她强忍着眼泪说。

Even though Chrissi and children learned to accept his scars, seeing their reactions was devastating for Hardison. He underwent more than 70 surgeries over the next decade to try to rebuild his mouth, nose and eyelids using skin grafts. He even got implants to help anchor prosthetic ears.

尽管妻儿逐渐接受了自己的伤痕，但是他们的反应对Hardison来说简直是毁灭性的打击。在之后的十年中，他接受了不下70次植皮手术来试图重建眼、鼻、口。他还接受了移植手术来帮助固定义耳。

“There were no moments of hope,” Chrissi Hardison said. “I remember talking to the doctors and thinking I had to allow myself to accept that he would not look the way he did before. ... every time he would go back for surgery, I would think, ‘he’ll probably come out and look maybe like he did before.’ I had no clue, no concept of how severe it was even months into it.”

“我们完全看不到希望，”妻子Chrissi说，“我记得跟医生谈了话并且决心强迫自己接受这个现实，他再也回不到原来的样子了……每次他接受完手术回来时，我就会想，‘他可能多少会变回原来的样子’。我没想到经过数月居然还是那么严重。”

But each surgery only resulted in minor improvements. Unable to have what he really wanted -- his old life back -- Hardison spiraled into depression.

每次手术所取得的进展都太小了，完全不能达成他真正的愿望——变回原来的样子——Hardison陷入了沮丧。

“Sometimes he would talk... doing good, feeling good,” said Hardison’s friend Travis McDonald. “And then he has to have another surgery, sucking through a straw for a month. I can’t imagine what it does to you mentally.”

“有时他会说……我很好，我感觉良好，”Hardison的朋友 Travis McDonald说，“然后他还要去接受下一台手术，只能通过吸管吃喝东西。我无法想象这对一个人的心理会有多大影响。”



Pat Hardison is shown here wearing a baseball hat in this family photo before his face transplant surgery.

Pat Hardison戴着一顶棒球帽和家人的合影，摄于面部移植手术之前。

The cycle of surgery and painful recovery took a heavy toll on Hardison and his family, including Chrissi, who was caring for him at home. Even though they had two more kids after the accident, their marriage was strained, and for a time, Hardison became withdrawn and was addicted to pain medication. After 10 years of marriage, he and Chrissi divorced.

手术和疼痛不已的术后恢复不断交替着，令Hardison及其家庭再也难以负荷，包括整日在家照料他的Chrissi。即使在意外发生后，他们又有两个孩子出生，但两人的婚姻关系却一直在恶化，而Hardison日渐变得孤僻的性格和对止痛药的依赖更是雪上加霜。最终，在结婚十年后，Hardison和Chrissi选择了离婚。

“It was hard for me to tell him, to say something to him, and it was even harder for him to hear it and accept it as the truth… ‘you’ve got to hit rock bottom, before you see up again,’” Travis McDonald said.

“我不知道该怎么告诉他，不知道该对他说点什么。对他而言，听到并且接受这个现实肯定更为艰难……‘置之死地而后生’，”Travis McDonald说。

Without eyelids, Hardison was also slowly losing his vision. His eye doctor told him he would eventually go blind. Hardison started to consider an option that had only recently been demonstrated to be possible: a face transplant.

因为失去了眼皮，Hardison的视力也越来越弱。他的眼科医生说他最终可能失明。于是Hardison开始考虑一个最近才被证实可行的选择：面部移植。

At the urging of a friend, Hardison sent his medical records to Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, a pioneering reconstructive surgeon who had just completed the most extensive face transplant ever performed to date, replacing the face, jaw and tongue of a man severely disfigured by a shotgun blast. The 2012 surgery had been a success and Rodriguez was looking for his next patient.

在朋友的敦促下，Hardison把自己的病历寄给了Eduardo Rodriguez医生。Eduardo Rodriguez医生是整形修复外科的一位先驱者，刚刚为一位因散弹猎枪炸膛而严重毁容的男性完成了当时最大的一台面、颌、舌置换手术。在这台2012年完成的手术取得了成功后，Rodriguez医生正在寻找下一位患者。

“Patient selection is probably the most important factor for this operation,” Rodriguez said.

“患者的选择或许是手术成功与否最重要的影响因素，”Rodriguez医生说。

In 2012, Rodriguez and his team began the process of vetting not just Hardison, but his family, friends and neighbors in Mississippi. Rodriguez wanted to make sure that Hardison fully understood the surgical risks, both the physical and psychological recovery, and that there was a possibility his body could reject the transplant and he could die. He also wanted to make sure Hardison was of good character and would be compliant with his post-surgery responsibilities, including medical appointments and daily medicine intake.
When the evaluations were finished, Rodriguez said he had found the perfect patient.

2012年，Rodriguez医生和他的团队在密西西比州开始了不止对Hardison本人，而且包括他的家人、朋友以及邻居的调查。Rodriguez医生希望能够确信 Hardison已经在生理和心理两方面都完全理解了手术的风险，并且知道一旦身体对移植物产生排斥，自己就可能会身亡。而且他还必须确信Hardison的性格健全，能够承担术后责任，包括按时复诊、每天坚持服药。当评估结束后，Rodriguez医生认为自己找到了最完美的患者。

“Here's a guy with a huge personality who just wants to get to the solution,” Rodriguez said. “He's very gung-ho individual, you can see it. It's his nature and he was ready to sign whatever it took to move this thing along. For patients like that, which we do value, it's important for us to kind of slow the process down and ensure that they completely understand what they're getting into.”

“他有着宽广的心胸，并且执着于解决自己的问题，”Rodriguez医生说，“他非常合作，你很容易发现这点。他天生就是那种可以排除万难向前走的人。为了像他这样令人尊重的患者，我们非常有必要减缓步调，直到确信他们完全理解自己将面临的一切。”



Play
Face Transplant Surgery Explained Step-By-Step 

面部移植手术的详细手术说明

To move forward, they needed a donor, one that would fit very specific criteria. Not only were they looking for a donor that matched Hardison’s skin color, hair color and blood type, but the skeletal structure also had to be similar.

要进行下一步，他们需要一位捐献者，一位符合严格标准的捐献者。不止是肤色、发色、血型要与Hardison相匹配，连骨骼结构都要与他相似才行。

“The blood type obviously has to match,” Rodriguez said. “We didn't want any viruses. We're not looking for any patient that has significant exposures, I.V. drug use and the like. We also look at tattoos, not so much that tattoos are bad, but individuals that get numerous tattoos, we're concerned about contamination of any form. We're looking for a patient that has not had any malignancy and no facial injuries. We're looking at skeletal measurements we want them to match skeletally. We look at specific distances of their eyes or nose or mouth, the lips, so we're very specific in a face transplant.”

“血型是肯定要匹配才行的，”Rodriguez医生说，“也不能有任何病毒感染。我们不会选择那些有过高危经验的患者，例如注射毒品等等。我们对纹身也有要求，不是说纹身不好，而是那些有多次纹身经历的人，我们必须要考虑这些纹身过程中可能存在的感染。同时也不能有重大疾病和面部损伤。关于骨骼方面，我们测量他们双眼、鼻子、嘴、唇的数据，以达到骨骼的匹配。我们对面部移植的要求很严格。”

Hardison was placed on New York’s transplant donor list in August 2014, and Rodriguez and his team began working closely with LiveOnNY, the organ procurement non-profit organization that matches organ donors with patients in and around New York City.
With such a specific set of criteria, LiveOnNY president and CEO Helen Irving said it was the hardest search the organization had ever conducted.

Hardison于2014年8月被放入了纽约移植捐献等候者名单，同时Rodriguez医生和他的团队也开始与LiveOnNY密切合作，该组织是一个为纽约市及其周边患者进行移植器官配型的非盈利器官采购组织。由于面部移植的配型要求极为严格，LiveOnNY的主席兼CEO Helen Irving说这是该组织进行过的最困难的搜索。

“This is possibly the most difficult search that we've ever done,” Irving said. “For sure it would have been made easier if more people signed up on the registry and more people said yes to donation, but in this particular instance we are looking for what I call a specific needle in a specific haystack.”

“这可能是我们从未有过的最困难的搜索了，” Irving说，“如果有更多的人注册登记并且同意捐赠，这件事会变得简单一些，但是对这个病例来说，我们的工作无异于海底捞针。”



Pat Hardison is shown here in his firefighter uniform before his face transplant surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center. 

图为Pat Hardison穿着他的消防员制服。摄于他在纽约大学蓝贡医学中心进行面部移植手术之前。

After a couple of leads fell through, the wait for a donor started taking its toll on Hardison.

在几次配型失败后，对捐赠者的等待开始令Hardison焦躁不安。

“It’s just a day-by-day thing, get up every morning and think, 'is today the day?' And the next day is the same thing, that’s just how it is,” he said.

“每一天都如坐针毡。早上一醒来就开始想‘今天会不会配型成功啊？’，就这样日复一日，那时候就是这么过来的，”他说。

Months went by without a match, and Hardison struggled with waiting.

几个月过去了，没有一次配型成功，Hardison在等待中备受煎熬。

“I don’t know how many times he’s thought about it, but I know he’s thought about giving up at least once,” said his friend Travis McDonald. “And he got to the point where he told me he didn’t know if he wanted to keep living and we talked about it. He’s got kids to live for and the main thing he was worried about was his sight and not being able to see them anymore. I said, ‘well at least you can hold them.’”

“我不知道他有过几次放弃的念头，但就我知道的就至少一次，” 好友Travis McDonald说，“有一次他终于忍不住对我说，不知道是否应该坚持活下去了，于是我俩好好聊了聊。孩子是他的精神支柱，他最担心的就是失明以后再也看不见他们了。我对他说：‘就算失明了，至少你还能拥抱他们啊。’”

Then, in July 2015, Hardison finally got the call he had hoped for, but it meant tragedy for another family.

而后，2015年7月，Hardison终于等来了那通他一直期盼着的电话，只是这同时也意味着发生在另一个家庭的悲剧。



Winner Dave Rodebaugh rounds a corner during competition at Red Bull MiniDrome in Brooklyn, N.Y., June 26, 2014.

Dave Rodebaugh赢得了2014年6月26日的红牛迷你室内赛场自行车赛，图为他在比赛中转过一个角落。

David Rodebaugh, or Dave to his friends, loved bikes. He worked as a bike mechanic and was an accomplished BMX rider. When he moved to Brooklyn from Ohio a few years ago, he found a new family in the bike messenger community and with a group who call themselves the “Lock Foot Posi."

David Rodebaugh热爱自行车，他的朋友们昵称他为Dave。他从事着自行车修理的工作，同时也是一个技艺高超的自行车越野赛选手。几年前，他从俄亥俄搬到了布鲁克林，在哪里的自行车信使社区找到了新的归宿，并且加入了一个自称为“Lock Foot Posi”的团队。

“It's like the old Christmas movie, the old Rudolph movie, where there's the Land of Misfit Toys,” said Al Lopez, who owns a bike messenger company called Cannonball Couriers and is one of Rodebaugh’s best friends. “And we're all kind of like misfits from somewhere. Wherever we came from for whatever reason we've united over bikes… It doesn't really matter what you wear or how you ride you know like if you're like. If you're down and you're like on the bike and you're one of us.”

“就像那个圣诞老电影，关于老Rudolph的那个，电影里有一个不合格玩具之岛，”Al Lopez是Rodebaugh最好的朋友之一，他拥有一家名叫Cannonball Couriers的自行车信使公司，说，“我们就像是那些来自各地的不合格玩具一样。不管来自哪里，为什么而来，我们现在通过自行车组织在了一起……不管你是什么穿着打扮，不管你骑得怎么样，只要你喜欢就好。只要你准备好了，而且喜欢自行车，那么你就可以成为我们中的一员。”

His friends said there wasn’t a trick Rodebaugh wouldn’t try or a bike he couldn’t fix, and he even won the Red Bull-sponsored Brooklyn MiniDrome cycling competition in 2014.

他的朋友们说，没有Rodebaugh不敢挑战的技巧，也没有他不能修理好的自行车，他甚至还赢得了由红牛赞助的2014年度布鲁克林迷你室内赛场自行车赛。

“Dave was a free spirit for sure and he loved what he loved,” Lopez said. “He loved bikes. He loved to go fast. He loved his friends, he loved this family. He loved adventure like, that was, that was Dave.”

“Dave有着自由的灵魂，他对自己热爱的事物全身心投入，”Lopez说，“他爱自行车。他爱飙车。他爱他的朋友们，他爱着这个大家庭。他爱冒险，这就是，这就是Dave。”



Play
The Face Transplant Donor: Dave Rodebaugh's Story

面部捐献者：Dave Rodebaugh的故事

But the bike he loved riding eventually claimed his life.

但正是他的爱车最终带走了他的生命。

In July 2015, Rodebaugh was riding without a helmet in Brooklyn when he crashed and hit his head. A few weeks later, he was declared brain-dead at the hospital. He was 26 years old.

在2015年7月的一天，Rodebaugh在布鲁克林骑车时发生了车祸，他没有戴头盔，摔出去时撞到了头。几周后，他被医院宣布脑死亡。享年26岁。

His friends honored him with a memorial ride over the Williamsburg Bridge, and when a representative with LiveOnNY approached his mother about donating his organs, she accepted.

他的朋友们为了悼念他，在威廉姆斯堡大桥举行了骑行纪念活动，并且在LiveOnNY的销售代表联系上他的母亲时，她接受了器官移植捐赠的请求。

“She knew straight away. David would have done anything to help,” Irving said. “She was told she could never have children and she had David and she felt very much that he was a miracle and that by doing this the miracle would continue.”

“她太了解Dave了。Dave是一个为了帮助他人可以两肋插刀的人，”Irving说，“她本来已经被告知可能永远不会怀孕，结果她怀上了Dave。Dave对她来说就是一个奇迹，她这么做就是在让这个奇迹延续。”

When Irving informed Rodriguez that she had a potential donor for the face transplant surgery, the blood, genes and other features underwent a series of tests. When it was determined that it looked like a viable match, Rodriguez called Hardison in Mississippi with the news.

Irving联系Rodriguez医生，告诉他这里有一个潜在的面部捐赠者，正在接受血液、基因和其他项目的检查。当各种检查显示，这应该就是那个最有可能成功的配型时，Rodriguez医生打出了那通Hardison一直盼望着的电话。

“When you look at the facial skeleton... they were only off by one or two millimeters,” he said.

“观察面部骨骼可以发现，他们二人仅仅相差1、2个毫米，”他说。

Hardison was elated. “It’s what I’ve been waiting for,” he said. “Since 2001, I’ve been praying to God and this is the day.”

Hardison兴奋极了。“这就是我一直在等待的，”他说，“从2001年开始，我就一直在向上帝祈祷，现在这一天终于到来了。”

On Aug. 14, 2015, Hardison was prepped for surgery and wheeled into one operating room, while the donor was wheeled into an adjacent room. Before starting, the surgical team held a moment of silence to honor Rodebaugh.

2015年8月14日，已经做好术前准备的Hardison被推进了一间手术室，与此同时，捐赠者被推进了毗邻的另一间手术室。在手术开始前，手术组静默了1分钟向Rodebaugh医生致敬。



The surgical team at NYU Langone Medical Center, led by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, worked for 26 hours to complete Pat Hardison's face transplant surgery.

由Eduardo Rodriguez医生领导的手术组在纽约大学蓝贡医学中心连续奋战26小时完成了Pat Hardison的面部移植手术。



Trays of instruments set up for Pat Hardison's face transplant surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

为Pat Hardison在纽约大学蓝贡医学中心的面部移植手术准备的多个手术器具托盘。

In a carefully coordinated surgery, Rodriguez slowly removed the donor’s face and scalp, including the outer skin, tissue, nerves and muscle, as the surgical team next door worked to remove the skin on Hardison’s face. With each step, Rodriguez updated the surgical team working on Hardison so that the two teams would remain in sync, and then they placed the donor face on Hardison. Among the trickiest parts of the surgery, Rodriguez said, was connecting the blood vessels.

在小心翼翼地合作手术中，Rodriguez医生慢慢剥下了捐赠者的面部和头皮，包括表皮、组织、神经和肌肉，在隔壁手术间的另一个小组同时剥下了Hardison的面部皮肤。Rodriguez每做一步就通知另一组，以保证两组人马同步进行手术，然后他们将捐赠者的面部转移给了Hardison。Rodriguez医生说，手术中最难的部分就是吻合血管。

“We got one chance to align to basically land this on the moon perfectly,” Rodriguez said.

“我们只有一次机会进行吻合，无异于登月成功，” Rodriguez医生说。

In total, the surgery took 26 hours to finish. Rodebaugh’s heart, liver and kidneys were also donated, along with his corneas, bone and skin tissue.

手术一共持续了26个小时。Rodebaugh在捐赠了眼角膜、骨骼和皮肤组织的同时也捐赠了心脏、肝脏和肾脏。

Although the face transplant surgery was considered a success, Hardison faced a long road to recovery. There was also a risk that Hardison’s body would reject the transplant. Of the roughly 30 patients who have received partial or full face transplants, Rodriguez said some three to five patients have died after rejection.

尽管面部移植手术获得了成功，但Hardison在术后还有很长一段路要走。同时他还面临着发生免疫排斥反应的风险。Rodriguez医生说每30个接受了部分或者全部面部移植手术的患者中，就有3到5人会死于排异反应。

Nine days after the surgery, Hardison was doing well and Rodriguez decided it was time for Hardison to look at himself in the mirror, a key step in post-op recovery.

术后九天里，Hardison恢复良好，Rodriguez医生认为是时候让他照照镜子了，这是术后恢复中关键的一步。

“It's important that he sees himself with me there,” Rodriguez said. “They're going to have a temptation [to look] as they're recovering and they're up and walking ... and they will be frightened for the first time... the amount of swelling that they have on and their immediate response will be, ‘my God what have I done?’ That's what they will think.”

“让他在我面前照镜子看看自己，是非常重要的，”Rodriguez医生说，“他们会受到【看的】诱惑，当他们康复、起床、走动……但当他们第一次看到自己时又会受到惊吓……在术后肿胀阶段，他们的第一反应会是，‘天啊，我做了什么？’这就是他们的想法。”

Reluctant at first, Hardison eventually gave in and agreed to look in the mirror. He was still swollen, but for the first time in 14 years, he could see he had lips, ears, a nose and the eyelids he so desperately needed.

虽然一开始极不情愿，但Hardison最终放弃了抵抗，同意照照镜子。虽然仍处于术后肿胀阶段，但是14年以来，他第一次看到自己脸上有了嘴唇、耳朵、鼻子，以及他极度渴望的眼皮。



Face Transplant Patient Sees Himself for the First Time Post-Surgery

面部移植术后第一次看到自己。

Carefully, Hardison touched his hands to his face, exploring his new and unfamiliar features, as Rodriguez pointed them out to him.
“Look at your big blue eyes… see how nice your eyelashes are?” Rodriguez told Hardison. “You’re going to be able to drive, pick your kids up at school. ... that was a very courageous moment to see yourself for the first time… I’m very proud of you.”

Hardison小心翼翼地用手碰了碰脸，在Rodriguez医生的提示下探索着自己崭新的、不同以往的脸庞。“看看你蓝色的大眼睛……眼睫毛是不是很漂亮？”Rodriguez医生对他说，“你以后就能开车啦，可以去学校接送孩子们……你非常勇敢地照了镜子……我为你骄傲。”



Pat Hardison sees himself for the first time on Aug. 24, 2015, after his face transplant surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Pat Hardison在纽约大学蓝贡医学中心接受了面部移植手术后，于2015年8月24日第一次看到了自己。

His forehead and cheekbones began adding shape to his face, but he had to start the process of re-learning how to speak and swallow, two functions severely affected by the surgery.

他的前额和颧骨开始在脸上显现出形状，但是他不得不重新开始学习讲话和吞咽，这两项功能受到手术的影响最为严重。

“This operation was so extensive we did harm his swallowing mechanism,” Rodriguez said. “The patients during that stage, although we've prepared them when they're going through it, they wonder, ‘is this the way I'm going to be for the rest of my life?’”

“这台手术非常大以至于我们损伤了他的吞咽机能，”Rodriguez医生说，“处在这一阶段的患者，尽管我们已经让他们对这个问题有了准备，他们还是会想，‘我以后是不是就只能这样活下去了？’”

Hardison spent the next few weeks battling through sometimes frustrating therapy sessions, but his swallowing slowly improved, the swelling went down and the feeling in his face began to return. He even practiced a few smiles.

Hardison用接下来的几周时间进行了康复治疗，尽管有时候他对此有些抵抗，但是他的吞咽机能在缓缓提升，肿胀也消下去了，开始找回面部的感觉了。他甚至在练习微笑。

Seeing him smile, Rodriguez said, is "amazing for me personally because all these gambles that we take, there are predictable risks that we take, to finally see that activated... watching all these milestones be met, I start feeling better and better."

看到他的微笑，Rodriguez医生说，这是“令我个人惊讶不已的，因为我们冒险一搏，冒了那么大风险，最后终于看到了成果……看到他走过康复之路的一个个里程碑，我的心情也越来越好。”

This was a big step, Rodriguez said, because during the transplant surgery, he had placed the donor skin, nerves and muscle over Hardison’s face muscles with the hope that over time the donor’s tissue would connect to Hardison’s face.

这是一个巨大的进步，Rodriguez医生说，因为在移植手术中，他将捐赠者的面部皮肤、神经和肌肉与Hardison的面部肌肉相连时，就怀着日后捐赠者的组织会与Hardison的脸相融合的希望。

“If the muscles are perfectly aligned with Pat's face, his muscles will power the new face and that's exactly what happened,” Rodriguez said.

“如果Pat的面部肌肉能与捐赠者的肌肉结合，那么他的肌肉就能驱动这张新的脸，事实也正是如此。”



Face Transplant Recovery: The First 90 Days 

面部移植后的恢复：最初的90天。

Up until this point, seven weeks after his surgery, Hardison had only been communicating with his kids back in Mississippi by text message, never sending photos.

术后七周以来，Hardison只通过文字和他远在密西西比州的孩子们联络，从来没有发过照片。

“I started becoming impatient,” said his daughter Alison, who is now 21. “I wanted to know what color hair he had, what skin tone he had, if he had tattoos. I mean just a million things went through my mind. I want to know about his lips, his eyes, if he had freckles, if he had moles.”

“我开始沉不住气了，”他21岁的大女儿Alison说，“我想知道他的头发现在是什么颜色的，他的皮肤是什么颜色的，是不是有纹身。我是说，我心里有无数个问题。我想知道他的嘴唇，他的眼睛，他有没有雀斑，有没有痣。”

Unlike Hardison’s three oldest children, Braden and Cullen, the two boys who were born after the accident, never knew him any other way than how he appeared after the fire. Before they all made the trip to New York to see him for the first time, Hardison texted them a photo to lessen the shock of his new face.

与年长的3个孩子不同的是，在意外后才出生的Braden和Cullen，从来没看见过他们父亲被烧伤前的样子。在他们第一次前往纽约探望父亲前，Hardison发给他们一张照片来减少他们看到自己新面孔时的震惊。

“It was weird,” Braden said, talking about seeing the photo of his dad’s face for the first time. “All that time I didn’t know what he looked like and when I actually see the picture and see what he looks like now, it’s like ‘whoa.’”

“感觉非常奇怪，”Braden谈到他第一次看见父亲新脸孔照片时的感受，说，“我一直都不知道他以前长什么样子，第一次看见他现在长什么样的照片时，我当时的感觉就是‘哇哦’。”

When Hardison was finally reunited with his kids eight weeks after the procedure, there were hugs and tears all around.

在术后第八周的时候，Hardison终于和孩子们团聚了，他们拥抱着彼此，泪流成河。



Pat Hardison is shown here before the 2001 fire (left), then before his face transplant surgery (center) and what he looks like today after surgery (right). 

左为2001年前未被烧伤的Pat Hardison，中为面部移植手术前，右为他现在术后的样子。

It’s now been three months since the surgery, which Rodriguez estimates cost about $1 million and was paid in full by NYU Langone. The skin color is a close match to his own and his hair and beard are growing in, so Hardison is getting used to shaving again after 14 years. He can touch and feel his new ears, something he thought he would never be able to do again after the fire.

现在手术已经过去3个月了。Rodriguez医生估算手术总费用达100万美元，全部由纽约大学蓝贡医学中心负担。Hardison面部的肤色已经近似于其他部位，头发和胡子也都长了出来，以至于Hardison在14年之后要重新习惯于刮胡子了。他可以碰触并且感觉到自己的新耳朵，这是他在被烧伤后一度以为自己再也不会拥有的。

“I was asleep one night after I had just got out of surgery,” Hardison said. “I was laying there, and I think this ear was itching and I went to pull on it thinking, I was going to take it off, and I pulled, and I was like, ‘oh, that doesn't come off.’”

“术后一天夜里，我睡着了，”Hardison说，“躺着躺着，突然觉得耳朵有点儿痒，然后我伸手抓住它，想把它拔下来，但突然间我意识到，‘啊，这不是能拔下来的义耳了。’”

Another major milestone for him, he said, was going out in public after the surgery.

他说，对他而言，另一个里程碑就是在术后走出去，到公共场合去。

“I went to Macy's to get clothes and I was just another guy, nobody is pointing or staring. I wasn't scaring any kids,” he said. “It’s just-- it’s very emotional, to have that.”

“我去梅西百货买了衣服，在商场里没人再视我为异类，没人对我指指点点或者盯着我看。我没吓到任何一个孩子，”他说，“这真是——太感动了，能够重新变得普通。”

So far, Hardison has exceeded all recovery expectations, but Rodriguez said he’s not out of the woods yet.

目前，Hardison的恢复程度已经超出了预期，但是Rodriguez医生说他仍然没有脱离危险。

“In most patients that I've received a face transplant they have an acute rejection episode commonly within 30 to 90 days,” he said. “In Pat's case we've not seen an acute rejection episode. So I'm a little concerned of what that will look like. We hope that we won't experience it.”

“我经手过的大部分患者在面部移植手术后都会有一段急性排异反应期，通常发生在术后30至90天，”他说，“但是在Pat的病程中我们并没有观察到一个急性排异反应期。所以我有点在意。我们都希望不要经历那个阶段。”

Hardison remains in New York to work on his recovery and misses his children terribly, but said he FaceTimes with them several times a week. He still suffers from constant pain and is on pain medication, but has no regrets about choosing to go through with the face transplant surgery.

Hardison目前还留在纽约努力进行复健，他非常想念他的孩子们，但是只能每周与他们视频几次以解相思。虽然他仍然为持续不断的疼痛所苦，并且一直在进行疼痛管理治疗，但是他从不后悔选择了接受面部移植手术。

“I never one time thought about failing,” he said. “I thought about the risk of dying because that never scares me because I lived. There are things in life that are way worse than death.”

"我从未想过放弃，“他说，”我考虑过死亡的风险，但是这一点都吓不倒我，因为我经历过。生命中有很多东西比死亡可怕得多。“

While he is still getting used to his new face, Hardison said he has started to see some of his old self again, but hasn’t forgotten about the donor who made it all possible.

目前Hardison还在适应他的新面孔，他说已经开始在这张脸上找到自己过去的一些影子了，但是他不会忘记让这一切变成现实的捐赠者。

“That donor and his family gave me this gift, and I can never thank them enough for giving me something as great as this, something I thought I would never have,” he said.

“捐赠者和他的家人给了我这份礼物，而我永远无法表达完对他们的感激，他们给了我这个奇迹，这个我曾以为自己永远不会拥有的奇迹，”他说。