Having majored in music in college, in voice no less, of course the impacts of this surgery on my long term speaking and singing voice raised concern. Since the onset of the bronchitis in October last year, my voice has turned hoarse and at times or just leaves me altogether after prolonged periods of speaking.
During the day, I'm on countless calls, in meetings, working with my team one on one, and then come home to sing and play with our son. In one of the second opinion consultations I had, the doctor referred me to a vocal specialist to dig a little deeper as during a Thyroidectomy, there are two sets of nerves that if damaged during surgery, can cause permanent damage to the voice: the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve. The doctor wanted to confirm that nothing else concerning was going on that could cause surprise during surgery.
On June 4th, I was scheduled a visit to this new provider, an otolaryngologist and a speech therapist. The intake questionnaire covered more questions than I'd even thought to ask myself about how I was eating, drinking, breathing, talking, and singing throughout this whole experience of my vocal dysphoria. In the office, the doctor and speech therapist continued with the questioning, examined my facial structure, and peeked at my ears, nose and throat. Then the real fun began.
A high-def camera was slipped into my mouth. Unlike the typical nasal scoping that's done to view the vocal cords, this required no numbing spray or a trip up my nose with a thin camera. I bit down slightly to close my mouth around the camera and they began the testing. Running me through scales, slides, and simple vocal exercises to see the voice box in action. I got to watch on a TV in front of me which I ate right up - I love this stuff - seeing how the body works inside and out! (I truly ended up in the wrong field - should have been a medical professional - too late?)
At the end of it all, the good news was there were no other malformations in the way of cysts, cancers, or otherwise - had enough of that going on already. But, there was the identification that my cords weren't performing optimally in the way in which they move and close. Additionally, there was a right sulcus deformity. Thankfully, they believed all this could be worked on post-surgery with therapies.
All of this information gathering, and the fact that my surgeon's wife is a professional singer, led them to enlist dual nerve monitoring methods during the surgery which tell them if they're getting too close to those nerves while operating. Outside of just feeling my voice is "weaker" and quieter right now, I'm hopeful that all this is temporary side-effects of the surgery.
But being the Eagle Scout that I am, I decided that I needed to have a little V.I.P - Vocal Insurance Policy. Having worked with amazing people in my past who thankfully I'm still friends with, I called up my buddy Jared who used to be in the recording business and that I knew to have recording gear. He'd sold it off to a friend but was kind enough to reach out to him and see if he could spare some time for me to hire some recording time. I decided this could be a great opportunity to archive my voice, although not in the best shape, but also record some favorites of Emily's as a late anniversary, early birthday present. From Ave Maria, Try to Remember, and a few others, we spent 4 hours recording. Studio work is not something to snuff at. Going back and forth, listening and reviewing, improving anything and everything from the balance, to a wrong note, it's very tedious. And we probably could have done another 4 hours.
Needless to say, I'm grateful for the time I got to record, the specialists who were diligent, and things like nerve-monitoring to make sure an accidental rub of those nerves didn't become permanent damage. Here's to not only cancer therapy, but speech and voice therapy to improve and keep what I spent a lot of time and money developing over the years.