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“They went out of their way to say they didn’t matter,” David says.
“他们不遗余力地说他们不重要，”大卫说。
But the med student turned patient would prove he was on to something.
但这个成为病人的医学院学生证明了他的观点。
“Patients pick up on things no one else sees,” he says.
他说:“病人能学会别人看不到的东西。”
Castleman disease struck David four more times over the next three years, with hospitalizations that ranged from weeks to months.
在接下来的三年里，大卫又四次罹患卡斯托曼病，住院时间从几周到几个月不等。
He stayed alive only through intense chemotherapy “carpet bombing” campaigns.
他只是通过强烈的地毯式化疗才活了下来。
During one relapse at a Duke University hospital, his family called in a priest to give him his last rites.
有一次在杜克大学医院复发，他的家人请了一位牧师为他举行临终仪式。
After all the setbacks, all the organ failure, all the chemo, David worried that his body would simply break.
在经历了所有的挫折，所有的器官衰竭，所有的化疗后，大卫担心他的身体会崩溃。
Yet despite it all, he managed to graduate from medical school.
尽管如此，他还是设法从医学院毕业了。
He also founded the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network ( CDCN ), a global initiative devoted to fighting Castleman disease.
他还创立了卡斯托曼病协作网络，这是一个致力于对抗卡斯托曼病的全球倡议。
Through the CDCN , he began bringing the world’s top Castleman disease researchers together for meetings in the same room.
通过卡斯托曼病协作网络，他开始召集世界顶尖的卡斯特曼疾病研究人员在同一间屋子里开会。
His group worked with doctors and researchers as well as patients to prioritize the studies that needed to be done soonest.
他的团队与医生、研究人员以及患者一起工作，以确定需要尽快完成的研究。
Rather than hoping for the right researchers to apply for grants, they recruited the best researchers to investigate Castleman.
他们并没有期望合适的研究人员申请资助，而是招募了最好的研究人员来研究卡斯特曼疾病。
David also prioritized clinical trials that repurposed drugs the FDA had already approved as safe rather than starting from scratch with new compounds.
大卫还优先考虑重新利用FDA已经批准为安全的药物的临床试验，而不是从零开始使用新的化合物。
Meanwhile, he never knew whether the next recurrence would finally kill him.
与此同时，他也不知道下次复发是否会最终杀死他。
Staving off relapses meant flying to North Carolina every three weeks to receive chemotherapy treatments.
为了避免复发，他需要每三周飞往北卡罗来纳州接受化疗。
Even so, he proposed to his college sweetheart, handing her a letter written by his niece that said, in part,
尽管如此，他还是向大学女友求婚了，并递给她一封由他侄女写的信，信中写道，
“I’m a really good flower girl.” “The disease wasn’t a hindrance to me,” says his now-wife, Caitlin Fajgen-baum.
“我真是个好持花少女。他现在的妻子凯特琳·法根-鲍姆说：“这种病并没有妨碍我。”
“I just wanted to be together.” But in late 2013, Castleman struck again, landing David in that Arkansas hospital.
“我只想在一起。但在2013年底，卡斯特曼病再次发作，戴维去了阿肯色州的那家医院。
It marked his closest brush with death yet.
这是他与死亡最接近的一次接触。
Before he and Caitlin could send out their save-the-date postcards, David set out to try to save his own life.
在他和凯特琳寄出他们的《恋爱预留日》信片之前，大卫开始尝试拯救自己的生命。
After examining his medical charts, he zeroed in on an idea that—more than 60 years after Castleman disease was discovered-researchers hadn't yet explored.
在检查了他的医疗记录后，他把注意力集中在了一个想法上——在发现卡斯特曼病60多年后——研究人员还没有探索过的想法。
