08 A visit to the doctor

A visit to the doctor I have only one unpleasant memory of the summer holidays in Norway. We were in the grandparents' house in Oslo and my mother said to me, 'We are going to the doctor this afternoon. He wants to look at your nose and mouth.' I think I was eight at the time. 'What's wrong with my nose and mouth?' I asked. 'Nothing much,' my mother said. 'But I think you've got adenoids.' 'What are they?' I asked her. 'Don't worry about it,' she said. 'It's nothing.' I held my mother's hand as we walked to the doctor's house. It took us about half an hour. There was a kind of dentist's chair in the surgery and I was lifted into it. The doctor had a round

在挪威的暑假，我只有一件不愉快的记忆。 我们在奥斯陆爷爷奶奶家，妈妈对我说:“今天下午我们要去看医生。” 他想看看你的鼻子和嘴巴。”我记得那时我八岁。 “我的鼻子和嘴巴怎么了?”我问。 “没什么，”我母亲说。 “但我想你得的是腺样瘤。“是什么?”我问她。 “别担心，”她说。 “没什么”。我牵着妈妈的手向医生家走去。 我们花了大约半个小时。 手术里有一种类似牙医的椅子，我被抬上去。 医生查房了

mirror strapped to his forehead and he peered up my nose and into my mouth. He then took my mother aside and they held a whispered conversation. I saw my mother looking rather grim, but she nodded. The doctor now put some water to boil in an aluminium mug over a gas flame, and into the boiling water he placed a long thin shiny steel instrument. I sat there watching the steam coming off the boiling water. I was not in the least apprehensive. I was too young to realize that something out of the ordinary was going to happen. Then a nurse dressed in white came in. She was carrying a red rubber apron and a curved white enamel bowl. She put the apron over the front of my body and tied it around my neck. It was far too big. Then she held the enamel bowl under my chin. The curve of the bowl fitted perfectly against the curve of my chest. The doctor was bending over me. In his hand he held that long shiny steel instrument. He held it right in front of my face, and to this day I can still

他的额头上绑着一面镜子，他从我的鼻子里偷看我的嘴巴。 然后他把我母亲拉到一边，他们低声交谈。 我看到母亲神色严峻，但她点点头。 医生在一个铝制的杯子里放了一些水，放在煤气炉上烧开，然后把一个又长又细又亮的钢制仪器放进沸水里。 我坐在那里看着蒸汽从沸水中冒出来。 我一点也不担心。 我太年轻了，没有意识到一些不寻常的事情将要发生。 这时，一位身穿白衣的护士走了进来。 她系着一条红色橡胶围裙，拿着一只白色的弧形搪瓷碗。 她把围裙围在我的身前，系在我的脖子上。 它太大了。然后她把搪瓷碗放在我的下巴下。 碗的曲线与我胸部的曲线完全吻合。 医生俯身看着我。 他手里拿着那只又长又亮的钢乐器。 他当着我的面拿着它，直到今天我还能

describe it perfectly. It was about the thickness and length of a pencil, and like most pencils it had a lot of sides to it. Toward the end, the metal became much thinner, and at the very end of the thin bit of metal there was a tiny blade set at an angle. The blade wasn't more than a centimetre long, very small, very sharp and very shiny. 'Open your mouth,' the doctor said, speaking Norwegian. I refused. I thought he was going to do something to my teeth, and everything anyone had ever done to my teeth had been painful.

完美地描述它。它的厚度和长度和一支铅笔差不多，像大多数铅笔一样，它有很多面。 接近末端时，金属变得更薄了，在这片薄金属的最末端有一个倾斜的小刀片。 刀刃不超过一厘米长，非常小，非常锋利，非常闪亮。 “张开嘴，”医生用挪威语说。 我拒绝了。我以为他要对我的牙齿做点什么，而任何人对我的牙齿做过的任何事都是痛苦的。

'It won't take two seconds,' the doctor said. He spoke gently, and I was seduced by his voice. Like an ass, I opened my mouth. The tiny blade flashed in the bright light and disappeared into my mouth. It went high up into the roof of my mouth, and the hand that held the blade gave four or five very quick little twists and the next moment, out of my mouth into the basin came tumbling a whole mass of flesh and blood. I was too shocked and outraged to do anything but yelp. I was horrified by the huge red lumps that had fallen out of my mouth into the white basin and my first thought was that the doctor had cut out the whole of the middle of my head. 'Those were your adenoids,' I heard the doctor saying. I sat there gasping. The roof of my mouth seemed to be on fire. I grabbed my mother's hand and held on to it tight. I couldn't believe that anyone would do this to me. 'Stay where you are,' the doctor said. 'You'll be all right in a minute.'

“不需要两秒钟，”医生说。 他说话温柔，我被他的声音迷住了。 我像个蠢驴一样张开了嘴。 小刀片在明亮的灯光下闪过，消失在我的嘴里。 它高高插进了我的上颚，握着刀刃的那只手迅速地扭动了四五下，紧接着，一大堆血肉从我嘴里滚落到盆里。 我既震惊又愤怒，除了大叫，什么也做不了。 我被从我嘴里掉到白色盆里的巨大的红色肿块吓坏了，我的第一个想法是医生把我的整个头中间切除了。 “那是你的腺样体，”我听到医生说。 我坐在那里喘着气。我的上颚好像着了火。 我抓住妈妈的手，紧紧地抓着。 我不敢相信有人会这样对我。 “待在那儿别动，”医生说。 "你马上就会好的。"

Blood was still coming out of my mouth and dripping into the basin the nurse was holding. 'Spit it all out,' she said, 'there's a good boy.' 'You'll be able to breathe much better through your nose after this,' the doctor said. The nurse wiped my lips and washed my face with a wet flannel. Then they lifted me out of the chair and stood me on my feet. I felt a bit groggy. 'We'll get you home,' my mother said, taking my hand. Down the stairs we went and on to the street. We started walking. I said walking. No trolley-car or taxi. We walked the full half-hour journey back to my grandparents' house, and when we arrived at last, I can remember as clearly as anything my grandmother saying, 'Let him sit down in that chair and rest for a while. After all, he's had an operation.' Someone placed a chair for me beside my grandmother's armchair, and I sat down. My grandmother reached over and covered one of my hands in both of hers. 'That won't be the last time you'll go to a doctor in your life,' she said. 'And

血还在从我嘴里冒出来，滴到护士拿着的盆里。 “说出来吧，”她说，“好孩子。医生说:“这样以后，你用鼻子呼吸就方便多了。” 护士擦了擦我的嘴唇，用湿法兰绒给我洗脸。 然后他们把我从椅子上抱起来，让我站起来。 我感到有点昏昏沉沉。“我们会送你回家的。”母亲说着，拉着我的手。 我们走下楼梯，来到街上。 我们开始散步。我说的是走路。 没有电车和出租车。我们走了整整半个小时的路程回到了祖父母家，当我们终于到达时，我清楚地记得祖母说:“让他坐在那把椅子上休息一会儿。” 毕竟，他动过手术。”有人在祖母的扶手椅旁给我放了一把椅子，我坐了下来。 祖母伸出手，用双手捂住我的一只手。 她说，这不会是你这辈子最后一次去看医生。 ”,

with a bit of luck, they won't do you too much harm.' That was in 1924, and taking out a child's adenoids, and often the tonsils as well, without any anaesthetic was common practice in those days. I wonder, though, what you would think if some doctor did that to you today.

运气好的话，他们不会对你造成太大的伤害。”那是在1924年，在没有任何麻醉的情况下切除儿童的腺样体和扁桃体是当时的常见做法。 我想知道，如果今天有医生对你做同样的事，你会怎么想。