Back to School

Across the country kids are counting down the days until school is out for the Summer. Me? I just went back to ’school’ today!

On Thursday morning, I returned to the same therapy hospital where I spent most of 2007, to undergo a speech therapy evaluation. Since having vocal chord surgery about a month ago, there has been a flurry of paperwork in an attempt to get things set up properly. Those four weeks also allowed for some of the post-surgery swelling in my throat to subside.

The rehab hospital is not terribly convenient to our house in northwest Austin, but I could have put the Tahoe on auto-pilot this morning. I may be mistaken, but I think I saw tire tracks worn into the pavement from all the traveling we did along that route last year! While it was slightly unsettling to go back to that scene, it was also somewhat comforting.

I will be seeing my same speech therapist that worked with me previously - another comforting piece of consistency. In a year of countless doctors, nurses and therapists, it is nice to be connected with a professional that has familiarity with my case history. My therapist is also one of the few folks I have encountered since my dagnosis that seems deeply committed to her work and her patients. I am in good hands!

To start things off I was reassured by hearing her tell me how much my appearance has improved. She cited many of the facial improvements discussed in ‘Fun with Picture Pages’, and definitely agreed that I had more power and volume in my voice.

Before beginning the formal evaluation, we discussed my recent surgery and exchanged thoughts on the preliminary results. To begin testing, I read words, sentences and an entire paragraph into a tape recorder. That recording will be replayed for somebody else,  who will try to determine what words are being read. (An interesting side note: I re-read the paragraph with a metronome keeping time. I can comfortably read aloud at about 80 bpm.)

The session then progressed through sustained phonation exercises, a visual checkup of oral motor movement capabilities and a discussion of the goals for this chapter of therapy. The initial assessment of the evaluation is that my current difficulties with articulation stem from my body working hard to learn to talk for over a year while having no cheek or lip movement on my left side, no palatal function and poor control of my airflow. My voice adequately learned to compensate during that time, but now that nerves are reconnecting, I will have to unlearn everything and re-teach myself the correct way!

It was reassuring to be able to sustain phonation for two or three times longer than I had previously during therapy. I can manage to hold a “Z” for about 14 seconds, an “A” for about 18 seconds and an “S” for 38 seconds. (Go ahead – try it with the second hand on your watch, you know you want to!) This improvement is a direct result from the implant that was placed in my vocal chord. As the chord was moved out towards midline, my control of the airflow needed to make these sounds has greatly improved.

One last thing, I set a goal with my therapist to be able to hold a three minute telephone conversation, during which I am only asked for clarification one time. With some hard work and dedication I will get there. Then maybe you won’t have to get so many text messages!