She moved to Arizona to escape what she thought were allergies. It didn’t work. She got married, and moved back to California and a doctor who she describes as her “Doctor House” diagnosed her with mast cell activation syndrome, an immune disorder where certain cells release too many chemicals.

婚后，她搬到加利福尼亚居住，一名她称为“豪斯医生”的外科医生诊断她患有肥大细胞活化综合征（mast cell activation syndrome），一种由于某些细胞分泌过多化学物质而导致的免疫系统的紊乱。

Today, for the first time in years, Hagberg Fisher is living without a diagnosis hanging over her. She’s on a strict plan to keep her mast cell activation in check and she says it’s working, and she feels better. But she still lives with uncertainty about her health. She’s never sure when she might be diagnosed again with a tumour, whether there’s something lurking within her waiting to finally reveal itself. But she says the uncertainty of her own life, and how long it might last, has completely changed her.

现在，这么多年来的第一次，哈格伯格•费舍尔终于不用再面临一个不确定的诊断了。她目前按照严格的计划接受治疗，定期进行细胞激活检查，而且她说这个治疗起到了作用，她感觉比以前有了很大的进展。但她对于自己的健康状况仍然不确定，不知道是否会再次确诊为癌症，也不知道体内是否藏着什么物质尚未显现出来。但她说，这种对于生命的不确定性，能活多久的担忧，彻底改变了她。

The day you will die

生命终结的那一天

What if you knew when it would be?

如果你知道是什么时候那会怎么样呢？

Various online quizzes plot your death date using demographic data such as race, gender and age. According todeathclock.com, for example, a 28-year-old non-smoker like me, with a BMI under 25, will die on Monday, December 26, 2044. These websites wildly overpromise in their accuracy, but scientific tools for looking at what might kill a person – and when – are improving.

五花八门的在线测试通过人口统计数据，例如种族，性别和年龄来预测你的死亡时间。例如 deathclock 网站预测，像我这样的28岁的非吸烟者，体脂指数低于25，将会在2044年12月26日星期一死亡。这些网站严重的夸大他们的准确性，而一些用来预测人死亡的科学工具正在不断的改进。

Some life insurance companies, for example, try to predict lifespans of their users based on big data techniques. And researchers are searching for genetic clues to death dates. Certain genes might even help doctors predict the time of day you die. People with one genotype in a study at Harvard University died before 11am; others on average died just before 6pm.

例如一些寿险公司通过大数据技术预测客户的寿命。科研人员正在通过基因的线索推算死亡时间。一些基因甚至可以帮助医生预测你死亡的具体时间。哈佛大学的一份研究表明拥有某个基因的人将在上午11点前死亡，而其他的人平均在下午6点前死亡。

For now, it’s mainly guesswork, based on averages – but as personalised medicine and genetic research advances, the date of your death may eventually be a fact that you must learn to live with.

现在这些预测主要是基于平均值的猜测，而未来当个性化的医疗和基因研究更加完善时，每个人的死亡时间有可能会提前知道，而人们必须要学会在这种情况下过日子。

Death on the mind

在知道死亡日期后生活

Scientists know that reflecting on death can influence our thinking in profound ways, often without us realising. Some research has shown that whenever any resource, like time left to live, is scarce, people tend to value it more. Another researcherhas found that when students write about death for a period of time, they report lower rates of depression and anxiety and higher levels of self-esteem and motivation.

科学家们认为对死亡的思考可以在潜意识中极大的影响我们的思维方式。一些研究表明，任何资源越稀缺，人们往往对其越珍视，例如剩余的活着的时间。另一位研究者发现，当学生们以死亡为主题进行写作一段时间之后，抑郁和焦虑的程度会降低，自尊与上进程度会提升。