这是美国艾尔帕索时报2009-12-28日发表的文章。下面是译文和原文。原文链接地址：http://www.elpasotimes.com/health/ci_14078374

图为Lawrence和他10岁的小妹妹在一起，他们从中国做完干细胞治疗回来。

就在一年以前，Lawrence做梦都没想到自己能够在西边公园投进篮球。Lawrence今年17岁，先天性失明。

这个埃尔帕索的高中生患了一种视神经发育不良的疾病。今年7月份，他们寄希望于颇有争议的干细胞治疗上。

然而在美国还没有干细胞移植这样的治疗。也有许多的美国医生带着怀疑的态度看待他们的决定。来自巴尔的摩的约翰霍普金斯大学大学的儿科眼科迈克尔雷普卡医生说没有任何方式可以治疗这种疾病。

于是Lawrence与他母亲及妹妹一起来到了中国青岛，开始了为期6周的干细胞治疗，他接受了9次干细胞以刺激视神经的生长，分静脉注射或腰穿的方式进行。在干细胞治疗的同时他也接受了理疗及中国的针灸治疗，以刺激细胞更好地发挥作用。

从那时起，他的视力有了惊人的好转。在做治疗之前，他仅仅能看到光，大块的颜色和阴影。今天，虽然他的视力还是有严重的损伤，但是他已可以分辨出学校的大厅里的人，若将照片拿到他的眼前他可以分辨出人的大体轮廓，他也可以分辨出家附近公园里的篮球筐的圆形轮廓。

大概3周前， Lawrence的一个打篮球的朋友来他家要和他一起去打篮球，他还宣称Lawrence那天可以投进一个球。“我当时的反应是‘哥们，你疯了吧’。但我别无选择，还是跟他去了，而且在投第二篮时就投中了，”Lawrence说着，开心地回忆着当时的场景。“当时那感觉真是太棒了，那是我一生中经历过的最棒的时刻之一。”看来他也可以常常去打篮球的。

“我能看见篮筐在哪，我能看见篮筐是圆的而不是方的。我能感觉到它像什么。但同时我也明白一件很重要的事，那就是东西本身是什么样和感觉上像什么是不一样的。”Lawrence说。

Lawrence的第一次改善是当他还在中国的时候。他先是在对颜色的感知能力有了变化，那以后他开始注意自己的改善。再后来他渐渐开始能够分辨大的轮廓。“我能看见这沙发是长方形的，”上周在接受采访的时候他说。2周前他的手仗断了，打那天起他上学就没再用手杖。“我想这是上天在暗示我离开手杖也一样能行。因为不用手杖和用手杖撞到物体的机率差不多。”但是考虑到他受局限性的视力，若是去不熟悉的地方，他还打算还继续使用手杖。

深度知觉是Lawrence以前从未接触过的事情，而Lawrence目前的进展已经让其有了这种知觉。他说，“时不时地会发生这种事，就是当我去伸手去够着某个东西的时候，我不是伸得太长将其碰倒就是伸得太短够不着，这很奇怪。”

他的妈妈Georgina A.Brown也说，当Lawrence向她走近的时候在距离感知方面会有困难，有时Lawrence会走得离她非常近。 “我之所以会走得太近是因为我仅仅能大体感觉到高度，体积以及角度等。走近后轮廓变大，变实。这样我才能更好得看清东西的实质特征。”

他的妈妈还说，自从他对周围的世界有了感知之后，他多年泥塑一样的生活也随之改变了。“他搭配颜色的本领比以前好多了，以前，他经常问，什么颜色配什么颜色比较好” “他告诉我们他要什么，他很确定他想要什么”Lawrence10岁的妹妹Emani Brown说。

从中国回来以后Lawrence还没有去他的验光师那里检查过，他们计划在2010年的年初去。他的妈妈说她想做完细胞治疗至少过6个月后再去看大夫。

“我们不想给他们任何理由认为我的视力变差了，因为我去了中国。”Lawrence说。

干细胞治疗在美国还不被批准，美国的专家们也不愿意承认干细胞治疗是否最终可能成为治疗视神经萎缩的一种途径。

“我想我们对干细胞治疗的了解还不够充分，比如它为什么会有效果或是没有效果。”Repka在今年初接受采访时说。

布朗家希望在一年内能再次回到中国去做干细胞治疗，那的大夫告诉他们最好等Lawrence的改善基本停止了之后再开始新的一轮疗程。

有时候， Lawrence想看见在他视野之外的东西却看不见，他会变得恼火。“看这些照片让人感到很窘丧，因为我能看到照片上有人和并且知道其大致关于什么，但是我不能看得清晰”他说：“我只能勉强可以告诉别人那是什么”.

Lawrence近来刚刚完成了去加利福利亚洲大学学习的申请，他想去那里学习爵士舞表演。他将于一月30号去那里报到。“大家都问我他离开家后我有何打算，是否会跟他一起去加利福利亚，”Georgina Brown说，“不会的，这几年来我就一直让他自己独立做事。现在他有了自己的翅膀，他必须自己去飞翔了。“ 她说，假期的临近让她想起了她与家人得知Lawrence眼睛看不见而且无望治愈后的第一个圣诞节，“我带他去商场的时候哭了，因为他看不见光亮。我就一一地对他介绍周围的一切。”

今天，Lawrence却拥有了医生曾告诉他不可能拥有的东西：进步与有限的视力。

他清楚也许自己的视力也许永远无法达到完全看清的程度，但他对现在所取得的进步已经非常感激。

“妈妈告诉过我，做任何一件事情，不论是工作还是学习，都要尽全力做到最好，并且要持之以恒。”Lawrence说“我感谢她给我灌输这样的思想，并且无时无刻不在给我加油。

他还说，每天都会有人提醒他要感恩，要感谢El Pasoans，因为是他给Lawrence捐了大部分的钱，才让他在中国的干细胞治疗之行成为可能。

“每一天我都会想起我在中国的治疗经历和发生在我身上的变化。”Lawrence说，“每一天，我都会期盼着新的变化发生，因为每一天，都承载着新的可能：那就是看到更多。”

原文：

Lawrenece Brown, 17, left, looks at pictures with his younger sister Emani, 10, from their trip to China where Brown underwent stem cell treatments in an attempt to regain his sight. (Ruben R. Ramirez / El Paso Times)

EL PASO -- It was nothing short of amazing.

The thrill of shooting a basketball through the hoop at a West Side park was something Lawrence E. Brown III would not have dared to even dream of only a year ago.

Lawrence, 17, was born blind.

The El Paso High School senior has a condition called optic nerve hypoplasia -- an underdevelopment of the nerves in his eyes. In July, he and his family placed their faith in a controversial stem-cell treatment.

The procedure is not available in this country and is met with skepticism by many U.S. doctors. No treatment exists for his condition, said Dr. Michael Repka, pediatric ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

So Lawrence and his mother and sister spent six weeks in Qingdao, China, so he could undergo nine stem-cell transfusions intended to stimulate the growth of his optic nerves.

The umbilical stem cells were delivered intravenously through his arm or injected directly into his spine. He received acupuncture and electric wave therapy to help stimulate the cells' work.

Since then, the improvements in his sight have been dramatic.

Before the treatment, his vision was little more than limited perception of light, color and shadowy masses.

Today, though his vision is still severely impaired, he can make out figures in the hall at school.

He can discern the general shapes of people in photographs held up near his eyes. He can make out the round shape of a basketball hoop at his neighborhood

park.

It was about three weeks ago that his friend, a basketball player, picked up Lawrence at home and announced he would be sinking a basket that day.

"I was like, 'You're crazy, dude,' but I had no choice but to go, so I went and I made it on the second shot," Lawrence said, grinning at the memory. "It was cool. It was amazing. That was one of the coolest feelings I've ever had in my life."

It was the only shot he made that day, but it astonished him that he was able to hit the backboard time and again.

"I could see where the hoop was. I could see that the hoop was round, that it wasn't a square. I knew what it felt like, but the biggest thing I've learned is knowing what something looks like and what it feels like are two completely different things," Lawrence said.

His progress has been gradual.

His first improvements began while he was still in China. He began seeing changes in his perception of color and he started detecting movement. Since then, he's progressed to discerning large shapes.

"I can see this couch is a rectangle," he said during an interview at home last week.

He stopped using his cane to navigate around school about two weeks ago after it broke.

"I took it as a sign that maybe I don't really need the cane. I've bumped into as many people without it as with it," Lawrence said.

But with his extreme sight limitations, he plans to continue using a cane when visiting unfamiliar places.

Depth perception is something else Lawrence never dealt with before, and its development has forced a big adjustment.

"It still happens on and off -- I'll reach for something and I'll reach too far and knock it over or I won't reach far enough. It's weird," he said.

His mom, Georgina A. Brown, said he has trouble gauging distance when approaching her and sometimes moves in extremely close.

"I'll come too close because I'm barely getting this depth and volume and angles and all of that, and shapes are becoming bigger shapes and more solid shapes," Lawrence said. "It's learning to see the character of things, that they have actual being."

As he's begun to get a sense of the world around him, the clay sculptures he's made for years have started to change, his mother said.

"The way he's putting the coloring together is much better. Before, he used to ask what looks good with what," Georgina Brown said.

"He tells us what he wants. He's sure of what he wants," Lawrence' 10-year-old sister, Emani Brown, said.

Lawrence hasn't been back to see his optometrist since he returned from China, but is planning to go sometime in early 2010.

His mom said she wants at least six months to have passed from his last stem-cell treatment before visiting the doctor.

"We don't want to give them any reason to think that I got worse because of China," Lawrence said.

The stem-cell procedure is not approved for use in this country, and U.S specialists are reluctant to say whether it might eventually become a treatment for optic nerve hypoplasia.

"I think we know an insufficient amount about the treatment, either why it should work or why it should not work," Repka said in an interview earlier this year.

The Brown family hopes to return to China in about a year for another round of stem-cell treatments. Doctors there told them it's best to wait until Lawrence's sight improvements stop before starting a new round of transfusions.

Sometimes, Lawrence becomes aggravated when what he wants to see is just beyond his sight.

"It's kind of frustrating looking at these (photos) because I can see there's people and there's things but I can't see the definition in it," he said. "It's just barely out of my reach to tell what it is."

Lawrence recently completed an application to attend college next year at California State University, Northridge, where he hopes to study jazz performance. He will audition at the school Jan. 30.

"People ask me what I'm going to do when he goes away. They ask if I'll follow him," Georgina Brown said. "No. This is what I did all those years. I gave him independence and now he has his wings and he has to fly."

She said as the holidays approached, she thought back to the first Christmas when the family knew Lawrence was blind and had no hope of any treatment.

"I went to the mall and I was crying because he couldn't see the lights. I was explaining everything to him," she said.

Today, Lawrence has something doctors told them would be impossible: Progress. Limited sight.

He knows he will probably always be visually impaired, but he is grateful for the improvements he has made.

"My mom has taught me about maximizing anything you do to the fullest. Whether it be in your job or your schoolwork, it should be all the way," Lawrence said. "I appreciate her for instilling that in me and for pumping it into me day and night."

He said he is reminded daily about how much he has to be thankful for and is grateful to El Pasoans for donating much of the money that allowed him make his $60,000 trip to China.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about the changes, that I don't think about China," Lawrence said. "There's not a day that goes by that I'm not looking for something new. Every day holds new opportunities for me to see something new."