My story starts in the northern Galapagos Islands, under 50 feet of water and a big school of sharks.
我的故事始于北加拉帕戈斯群岛，50英尺的水下，还有一大群鲨鱼。
I'd been scuba diving with a group of friends for about a week, and it had been glorious:
我已经和一群朋友用水肺潜水了约一周时间，一切都是那么美妙：
manta rays, whale sharks, penguins and, of course, hammerhead sharks.
蝠鲼、鲸鲨、企鹅，当然还有双髻鲨。
Today's dive was particularly tricky. The surge was terrible.
不过今天的潜水特别不顺。水流太糟糕了。
You had to have your camera rig tight in and your arm out,
我不得不把相机抱在一边的腋下，并且伸出另一只手，
because the surge kept throwing you into the rocks while you're scanning up for that beautiful photograph.
因为当我在拍那些漂亮的照片时，水流一直把我往石头上推。
It was going OK, until ... not OK. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
一开始还算顺利，渐渐地...情况就不那么乐观了。糟糕，非常糟糕。
I pulled my hand back, and I had long, black sea urchin spines all the way through my gloves,
我把手缩回来，然后看到又长又黑的海胆刺贯穿了我的防护手套，
which meant all the way through my hand.
也就是说，刺穿了我的手。
Now, this is bad. I mean, obviously when you have something all the way through your hand, it's kind of bad anyway,
这下糟糕了。不用说，有任何东西刺穿你的手的时候都挺糟糕的。
but in this case, sea urchins have a venom on them that,
但是现在的问题是，海胆上有一种毒素，
if you've ever tangled with them, you know that a sea urchin spine in you gives you horrible, painful inflammation.
如果你与它们有过接触，你就知道海胆刺会给你带来可怕、痛苦的炎症。
But that wasn't even topmost in my mind at this point.
但这并不是我此时脑中的头等大事。
This did not look real. I could not believe that this was my hand.
这看上去不像是真的。我不相信这是我的手。
Now, in a crisis, I tend to disassociate into, like, little scientists, and I start talking very analytically.
在遇到危机时，我的大脑通常会表现得有点像个小小科学家，说起话来分析得头头是道。
All analysis was gone, adrenaline brain kicked in, and I just yanked the spines out.
但当时，理性分析的大脑消失了，而肾上腺素大脑出现了，我就直接把海胆刺猛地拔了出来。
I don't remember doing it. I just remember thinking, "I can't get my glove off with these in here."
我甚至不记得我这么做了。我只记得当时想着，“我可不能把这些东西留在我的手套上。”
I do remember taking the glove off and a big plume of black coming up in front of my face.
我记得当我脱下手套时，我的眼前出现了一股黑色的物质。
And biologist brain now shows up and starts freaking out.
现在，生物学大脑占了上风，我突然有一些不知所措。
"How could all that toxin have gotten into that wound already?"
“毒素怎么可能已经进入到了伤口中？”
Well, physicist brain then shows up and very calmly explains,
然后物理学大脑出现了，非常冷静的解释道，
"No, no, no, we're at 50 feet, red wavelengths are attenuated.
“不，不，不，我们现在在水下50英尺，红光波长被削弱了。
That's blood -- not black. And sharks. So what are you gonna do?"
那是血--不是黑的。头顶上还有鲨鱼。你现在打算怎么办？”
Well, I cranked my cummerbund down really hard over my hand, and I simply swam away.
于是，我把腹带紧紧的缠在了手上，然后就游开了。
"Let's let that big old cloud of blood dissipate a bit before we have to surface through all of these sharks."
“在上浮并游向鲨鱼成群的水面之前，得先让那一大团血消散一些。”
So when I did surface, my warm-blooded-mammal brain was in an absolute gibbering panic:
当我开始上浮时，我那温血哺乳动物的大脑已经慌乱到了极点：
"They don't feed when they're schooling. They don't feed when they're schooling. All the way up."
“它们成群而游时不进食。它们成群而游时不进食。只管向上游吧。”
And they didn't. So apparently, they have read the same books that I have.
它们的确没有进食。显然，鲨鱼和我读过一样的书。
Now, it turns out, when you've been stabbed with sea urchin spines,
事实是，如果你被海胆刺扎了，
and you're two days away from any medical help, the thing that you've got to do is, unfortunately, cook your hand.
而且两天之内无法得到任何医疗救助，很不幸，你能做的事情只有烫敷。

So you put it in water as hot as you can stand, and you keep adding boiling water until you think you will go absolutely insane.
所以我把手放在所能承受的最烫的水里，然后不断地加开水，直到我觉得自己已经完全疯了。
Now, it worked -- the hand itself did not work so well for several weeks after that, but eventually, fine motor skills returned.
不过这个做法起效了--在那后的前几周，手还不太灵活，但最终，我那灵敏的手又回来了。
All except for one spot, that stayed stiff and painful for weeks after the other things had gotten better.
但有一处地方，即使其他功能都逐渐恢复了，这里却仍然持续僵硬并疼痛了数周时间。
So it turned out, I'd broken off a tip of the urchin spine in the joint itself, and that's why it wasn't getting better.
后来我发现，我把一小段海胆刺留在了关节里，这就是那一处没有好转的原因。
So the orthopedist says, "You know, we should get this out. Nothing too urgent, not an emergency."
骨科医生说，“我们得把它取出来。不是很紧急，算不上很要紧的事。”
So we scheduled a small surgery for a few weeks out on a Monday.
所以我们定下在几周后的周一做个小手术。
And on the Friday before, I broke my pelvis in a horseback riding accident.
然而在约定日期的前一个周五，我在骑马时发生了事故，摔坏了骨盆。
Yeah. So we kind of postponed that surgery.
是的。所以我们不得不推迟了那个手术。
My broken pelvis and I were now facing six weeks on the couch,
我不得不带着破碎的骨盆在沙发上躺上六周的时间，
and I would have gone absolutely insane if it hadn't been for my friends.
如果没有朋友们的陪伴，我肯定早就疯了。
Spontaneous parties broke out at my house every night for weeks.
我的住处总在举办派对，周周如此，夜夜如此。
I was fed. I was entertained. It was great.
我吃饱喝足。尽情享乐。简直太棒了。
But that kind of enthusiasm is sort of hard to sustain over the long term,
但是那种热情很难长期维持，
and eventually it petered down to just one friend,
最后只剩下了一个朋友，
who would send me jokes during the day and come and keep me company in the evenings
他白天会给我发笑话，晚上会来陪伴我，
someone I got to know a whole lot better during this period of convalescence.
在康复期间，我更深入地了解了这个人。
And when I was finally pronounced well enough to do weight-bearing activities,
当我被通知已经康复并可以做负重活动时，
we loaded a telescope in the car and drove up into the mountains to look at the Hale–Bopp comet.
我们在车里装了一个望远镜，开上了山，一起仰望海尔-博普彗星。
Yes, we are geeks. And got caught in a landslide.
是的，我们蛮酷炫的。然后遇上了滑坡。
I know -- like, really? No. Just kidding.
我知道你们在想--这也太悲催了吧？其实这只是个玩笑。
No more disasters. No. Just the opposite, in fact.
不要再有灾难了。我受够了。事实上恰恰相反。
That was 21 years ago, and for 19 of those years,
那是在21年前，之后的19年里，
I have been married to that marvelous introvert who never in a million years would have approached me under other circumstances.
我嫁给了那个无与伦比的内向的他，那个在其他任何情况下，永远不可能主动接近我的人。
We have a wonderful 14-year-old daughter, who did all my illustrations.
我们有了一个超级棒的14岁女儿，她画了所有这些插图。
Yeah. So, pro tip: apparently, nothing makes you sexier than needing a walker on your first date.
是的。那么，给大家一些建议：显然，没有比在第一次约会时就需要一个助步车更让你显得性感的事了。
So this isn't a story about piercings or sharks or boilings or breakings.
所以这不是一个关于穿刺或是鲨鱼或是煮东西或是骨折的故事。
It's a love story. It's a love story with a funny little epilogue.
这是一个爱情故事。这个爱情故事还有个有趣的尾声。
Now I was weight-bearing again, I could reschedule that surgery, get the spine out.
现在我又可以负重了，我可以重新安排那个手术，把刺取出来。
But I didn't need it anymore. Turns out, when you break a bone, your body scavenges calcium from all the bones in your body
但是我不再需要这个手术了。事实上，当你骨折时，你的身体会从你身上的所有骨头汲取钙质，
and from the little sea urchin spine that you happen to have lodged in the joint of your finger.
也会从那个手指关节中不小心被刺入的海胆刺中汲取。
So yes, my pelvis is now part sea urchin.
是的，现在我的骨盆有一部分是海胆了。
So to biology brain, physicist brain, adrenaline brain, warm-blooded-mammal brain,
除了生物学大脑，物理学大脑，肾上腺素大脑，温血哺乳动物大脑，
I get to add "urchin brain," with all of the superpowers that that confers.
我还要加一个“海胆大脑”，用来表示它所赋予我的所有超能力。
You don't need to worry, though: that I am not fully human is one of the things that my family loves the most about me.
但你们不必担心：虽然我并不完全是个人类，但我的家人最爱我的正是这一点。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。