My Cancer Story

Part 6 - Learning how to talk again

Part 6 - Learning how to talk again 

(Period of time: the week after the therapy - half a year later) 

When the therapy, the surgeries, well, basically everything was over and I was healed, the doctors send me to a throat specialist because of my broken voice. It's a bit hard to explain, but it nearly sounded as if I aspirated every single word. I unintentionally added an "h" in front of every vowel and sometimes people wouldn't even understand what I wanted to say because that totally changed the meaning of the word and I couldn't do anything against it. 

When arrived at the doctor, he did some test and he recorded the movements of my vocal chords with a little camera. On a screen we could see that one of them didn't move at all when I talked, so they couldn't close completely and air could run through a slit, which made my voice husky and weak. He also explained that the surgeon probably touched the vocal cord accidently when he was removing the tumor (which happens pretty often) and now it was paralyzed.  

I was afraid that I couldn't talk properly for the rest of my life. A paralyzed vocal cord doesn't sound good, especially to a 14-year-old. I couldn't call someone when I needed something, I couldn't sing anymore, which was one of my hobbies at that time, I couldn't do presentations in school, because no one would hear me beside of the first row. You only realize how important your voice is, when it's nearly gone. 

We went to the specialist everyday for a week or so, until he said that I should take lessons at my local speech therapist. He said that we could try to make the paralyzed cord move again. 

For the following half year I went to the speech therapist every week. We did exercises, drank tea and talked. The exercises were really strange and I wondered who that would make my vocal cord move again. I had to say things like "Pi, Pa, Po" as powerful as I could and we even did exercises for my midriff. How was that supposed to help me with my vocal cord problem? I highly doubted those exercises, but I did what the therapist told me.  

One day she explained to me that when both vocal cords close, it makes a little popping nose. She showed me by doing it and it was very quiet, but I remembered that I could do the same before the surgeries. It is hard to explain what it sounds like but if I try I'd say it's the little starting noise of a vowel. Try to say "A" and stop immediately after you've started. Maybe you know what I mean (still a bad explanation. I think you have to hear it to understand it).  

She said that if I could make that noise, both vocal cords would touch and I could talk properly again. 

We continued doing the exercises and I trained my voice at home too. I often tried to do the little noise at home but it never worked. 

One evening, when I was lying in bed, I tried to do it and I managed it! I did it five times to make sure that I could do it more often and I was soooo happy that I screamed! 

But that wasn't a good idea.... I screamed and couldn't do it anymore..... I was so upset and angry at myself that I've ruined my voice again, that I nearly cried. Luckily it was only for the night and when I tried it the next morning it worked again! 

I could talk like before!!! 

We went to see the throat specialist again and he said that we didn't heal the paralyzed vocal cord. It still didn't move. Instead, we trained the left cord to do the whole work and move all the way to the damaged vocal cord to close the slit.  

I don't mind that I can only talk with one vocal cord as long as it works perfectly. Sometimes words are louder or squeakier as I want them to be, but it's okay for me. I'm just happy that I can call for people, that I can sing to my favourite songs (even though I can't sing that good :) ) and that I can speak in front of the class again without being ashamed.  

It was a long journey, but in the end I've learned lots.

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Thank you so much for reading! This is basically the end of my medical journey (I still have inspections and ultrasonics and stuff like that), but I will write parts about thoughts, feelings, what I've learned, what you should do, when you know someone with cancer and what not to do. Things like that.
Have a wonderful day, stay strong and be happy! :)
xx