《英语流行话题阅读:语境识词3500》Unit 17 更难却更好的永别

　　Unit 17
A Harder, Better Goodbye
Mother complained of a pain in her ribs¹. She was a yoga lover, an ocean swimmer, a woman who at 72 looked ten years younger. She thought she had pulled a muscle. But the pain refused to go away. Tests revealed that cancer had moved to her ribs and spine².
She and my father had been planning summer vacation. Now they were planning the remaining months of her life. She made it clear she did not want to remain in the hospital. She wanted to go home.
Hospice, we were told, could help us care for Mom at home. Suddenly hospice became the center of our lives. A few times a week the hospice staff -- doctor, nurses, social worker -- would visit our home, making sure Dad and I could handle the bedpans, the pain killers³ and the reality of Mom's dying.
March, April, May. Each month, each week, each day was a diminishment. Mom was confined to downstairs, then to her bedroom, then to her bed. Dad brushed her hair. I read to her. We examined family photo albums. As we flipped⁴ through these Kodak moments of life now drawing to a close, I would comfort myself: At least we are home.
Our biggest fear was that Mom would experience unbearable⁵ pain. But she did not. Painkiller⁶ helps. It was in those last days that hospice was of particular help. I had not seen anyone die before; I did not know what to do. Use swabs to wet her mouth, the nurse told me. Hold her hand. Her senses are dimming, but hearing will linger. Tell her you love her.
She died on Father's Day. I had bought Dad a bottle of cognac, which we were drinking when we heard her breathing stop.
Serious illness is a journey to a foreign country. You do not speak the language, the people are strangers, and you cannot know how you will behave until you arrive. But inner strength, too, is unpredictable. For after the night of Mom's death when I thought I could not go on, we went on. That could not have happened without hospice. The hospice nurse had made her comfortable; the aide had set her hair.
Deaths like my mothers prove that hospice can make death not just an ending but a kind of culmination⁷. If you control symptoms, if you provide support to patients and families, you can see great growth at the end of life. There are many alternatives to suicide even at the end of life. Hospice offers the hope that death, while inevitable⁸, need not be impersonal⁹, need not be unbearable. The argument over assisted suicide may have helped Americans recognize the ways in which medicine, so good at so many things, fails the dying. But it also prevents us from meeting the real challenge of providing decent end-of-life care.

1 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

2 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

3 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

4 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

5 unbearable   

adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的

参考例句：

• It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
• The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。

6 painkiller   

n.止痛药

参考例句：

• I shall persuade him to take the painkiller.我将说服他把药吃下去。
• The painkiller only provides him a short respite from his pain.止痛药仅仅让他在疼痛中有短暂的疏解。

7 culmination   

n.顶点；最高潮

参考例句：

• The space race reached its culmination in the first moon walk.太空竞争以第一次在月球行走而达到顶峰。
• It may truly be regarded as the culmination of classical Greek geometry.这确实可以看成是古典希腊几何的登峰造级之作。

8 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

9 impersonal   

adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的

参考例句：

• Even his children found him strangely distant and impersonal.他的孩子们也认为他跟其他人很疏远，没有人情味。
• His manner seemed rather stiff and impersonal.他的态度似乎很生硬冷淡。