I have been really, really sick.

At the end of April my voice became entirely bizarre. I sounded like Mickey Mouse – a high, hooting tone. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it, though.

The next day I was hit with ischemic colitis. That’s like having a stroke in your large intestine. For most of five days I was flat on my back in the hospital getting IV antibiotics, slugs of morphine on a regular basis, and being fed a liquid diet. When I got out, I was exhausted and had almost no strength.

They told me 6-10 weeks is the general recovery time. Others have since told me different. My joints hurt a lot – this has turned out to be bursitis brought on, apparently, by being given too much fluid via IV. (I came home weighing 12 pounds more than when I went in, and peed it all away in three days.)

After awhile I got to my throat doctor who took a look and told me that my left vocal cord was paralyzed. Tests to find out if something was pressing on the laryngeal nerve showed there were no tumors anywhere in the chest. Turns out, sudden paralysis of a vocal cord for no apparent reason isn’t unusual. The treatment is outpatient surgery to inject material into the paralyzed cord that makes it larger, so that the working cord can meet it. The benefit of this, if it works, isn’t just getting a better voice, but also reduces the danger of choking that was increased by the paralysis.

I had the procedure done at the beginning of July, two months after I’d gotten out of the hospital. It worked! My voice went back to normal. But – it also set my recovery back. Once again I was wiped out.

Today it has been four months since I was released from the hospital, and I’m still not recovered. I begin to worry if I ever will get back to the level of health I had before then.

I have so much to say! I just have to find the strength to say it.