人物:瘫痪拦不住我(1)

 I won't let being paralyzed stop me 我不会让瘫痪阻拦我

2 years after a fall from a third-floor balcony put her in a wheelchair, the 25-year-old doesn't let anything hold her back 两年前，她从三楼的阳台上摔下来，坐上了轮椅，如今25岁的她一往无前

It was the spring of 2016, and 23-year-old Jillian Harpin was having the time of her life. 那是2016年的春天，23岁的吉莉安·哈宾度过了她一生中最美好的时光。

With a college degree from Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., already under her belt, she was happily juggling¹ work as a financial analyst² and a packed social calendar—filled with weekend ski trips and nights out with her girlfriends. 她在马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆的宾利大学(Bentley University)获得大学学位，她一边做着金融分析师的工作，一边把社交活动安排得满满当当：周末的滑雪计划，还有晚上和闺蜜们出去玩的安排。

Planning to pay of her student loans, she'd just moved back home with her parents in Wolcott, Conn., and had set her sights on finishing a series of 50 area hikes by the end of the summer. 为了偿还学生贷款，她搬回康涅狄格州沃尔科特的家和父母一起住，并打算在夏末之前完成一系列50个地区的徒步旅行。

"I was so excited for my future," says Harpin. "I felt like I had it all." But all of that was about to change. “我对自己的未来感到非常兴奋，”哈宾说。“我觉得我拥有了一切。”但这一切即将改变。

On April 18 she and three of her closest friends left for a week-long vacation in Riviera Maya, Mexico. 4月18日，她和三个最亲密的朋友去墨西哥的玛雅里维埃拉度假一周。

Five days into the trip—"We were having the best time," she says—Harpin walked out onto the balcony to make a quick call home before dinner. 五天之后——“我们玩得很开心，”她说——哈宾走到阳台上，在晚饭前打了个电话回家。

Sitting on the balcony's railing. "I lifted my foot up and lost my balance," recalls Harpin. 她坐在阳台的栏杆上。“我抬起脚，失去了平衡，”哈宾回忆道。

She plummeted³ three stories to the grass below, fracturing three vertebrae in her back, her sternum and several ribs⁴. 她从三层楼的高处摔到下面的草地上，背部三块脊椎骨、胸骨和几根肋骨折断。

Harpin was unconscious as she was airlifted to a hospital in Miami the next day and woke up in a daze⁵ of pain medication to discover she was paralyzed from the waist down. 第二天，哈宾被空运到迈阿密的一家医院时还没有意识。止痛药作用逐渐消退，她迷迷糊糊醒来，发现自己腰部以下都瘫痪了。

"When I was getting prepped to go into surgery, my dad was standing⁶ right in front of me, crying and crying," Harpin recalls. “当我准备做手术的时候，我爸爸就站在我面前，哭了又哭，”哈宾又说。

"So I looked at him and I said, 'Dad, it's going to be okay. I'm still Jillian. I'm still here. I've got my head, I've got my hands. It'll be okay.'" “所以我看着他说，‘爸爸，一切都会好的。我还是吉利安。我还在这里。我还有头，我还有手。会没事的。’”

Two years later Harpin, now 25, is more than okay. 两年后，现年25岁的哈宾好得很。

Although doctors have told her that her chances of walking again are slim, she cycles in half-marathons, plays adaptive basketball, goes rock climbing on a wall at a local gym—and even rode a mechanical bull on a trip to Nashville. 尽管医生告诉她，她再次走路的可能很小，但她骑自行车参加半马拉松，打适应性篮球，在当地一家健身房攀岩，甚至还骑着一头机械牛去纳什维尔旅行。

In April she participated in a 5K race—and in June, with the help of a specially⁷ designed off-road wheelchair, she took second place in the Gaylord Gauntlet, a strenuous⁸ trail-and-obstacle event in Wallingford, Conn., that saw her crawling through mud, scaling walls and clambering over rock piles. 今年4月，她参加了一项5公里赛跑。今年6月，利用专门设计的越野轮椅，她在康涅狄格州沃林福德的盖洛德挑战赛(Gaylord Gauntlet)中获得第二名。盖洛德挑战赛是一场艰苦的障碍跑步比赛，她爬过泥地，翻过墙壁，爬过石堆。

"Everything seemed impossible after the accident," she says. “事故发生后，一切似乎都不可能，”她说。

"I thought I had this broken body and that I would never be okay, but I really just had to reinvent how my life was going to look. It wasn't over." “我以为我的身体已经碎了，我永远都不会好起来，但我真的必须重新塑造我的生活，生活还在继续。”

That revelation, however, didn't come easily. "It took a long time to get here," says Harpin. 然而，这个启示来之不易。“花了很长时间才明白，”哈宾说。

1 juggling   

n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词

参考例句：

• He was charged with some dishonest juggling with the accounts. 他被指控用欺骗手段窜改账目。
• The accountant went to prison for juggling his firm's accounts. 会计因涂改公司的帐目而入狱。

2 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

3 plummeted   

v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Share prices plummeted to an all-time low. 股票价格暴跌到历史最低点。
• A plane plummeted to earth. 一架飞机一头栽向地面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 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。

5 daze   

v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏

参考例句：

• The blow on the head dazed him for a moment.他头上受了一击后就昏眩了片刻。
• I like dazing to sit in the cafe by myself on Sunday.星期日爱独坐人少的咖啡室发呆。

6 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

7 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

8 strenuous   

adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的

参考例句：

• He made strenuous efforts to improve his reading. 他奋发努力提高阅读能力。
• You may run yourself down in this strenuous week.你可能会在这紧张的一周透支掉自己。