The Disappearing Voice of Sylvia

  I was instructed to sit and wait in any of the row of seats while my wife visited with her doctor.  There was a single empty seat between two strangers; a man and a woman.  The bearded man looked annoyed to have to wait on anyone for anything; the woman a fair looking mid-age type you see everywhere without comment one way nor the other.  I sat down and impulsively spoke to the woman,

   “Hi, I’m Albert and am here to annoy you so you can forget why you came to see your physician.”  She smiled at my humor. I followed up with, “What are you in for?”

  In a raspy voice she said her name was Sylvia, and that she was afflicted with a disappearing voice.

   “Do tell” I replied,

  I mean after all you don’t hear that every day, even in a doctor’s office; you can pretty much predict people will be brief-and general,

“I don’t feel good” or “my lumbago is acting up again”

  Sylvia told me she was visiting her doctor to seek an alternative to Botox injections to save her voice.  She told me the options, over six years of looking, had diminished to this one; she was feeling uncertain with the possible consequences of a botched effort.

  I responded with, “Six years? You’ve had this for that long?”

  She nodded affirmative, then explained originally it was just something simple, a minor annoyance, so the family doctor thought it was laryngitis brought on by over doing it, not eating right, or resting enough, the usual culprits for that sort of thing.  When the problem persisted with refusing to respond to common treatment; then it was thought to be Strep Throat; when the cultures came back negative, then it might be the results of Laryngopharyngeal reflux disease, (She said the word with practiced ease, I had to ask her to repeat it several times until I could burn it into my memory for future research; even with that, I couldn’t spell it without spell check).  But she told the doctor that couldn’t be the problem, she didn’t have those kinds of upsets. The years progressed and her voice continued to get worse. She visited all of the great clinics of the country; John Hopkins, Cleveland clinic; even the Mayo Clinic.  She said she was told it wasn’t polyps, cyst or nodules so that ruled out forms of cancer.  I mentioned about psychosomatic illnesses, and she laughed saying she too considered that once, but figured since she did get a pony for her tenth birthday, she was confident that it wasn’t some hidden emotional maladaptive affliction.  She sighed, saying she had got so desperate she even sought out a Naturopathic doctor in California who claimed to cure similar types of ailments conventional medicine was impotent to affect.  With his mix of native medicine, holistic wisdom and shamanic interventions it was almost a sure thing; to the tune of $30,000 per application. The caveat being there were no guarantees nor offer to repeat the procedure if the results weren’t positive.  We both scrunched our noses at one another in the universal, ‘this doesn’t sound right’ reflex.

  She said she hadn’t planned on it, but after so much time looking for a solution, she had become the subject matter expert on her ailment; that she found herself lecturing doctors she visited who went groping for suggestions as to what it might be, to the finer points of the specifics concerning throat medicine.  I could well imagine the plight.

  “Now, I’m left with a conventional agreement that Botox shots into my voice box is about the only known relief to my problem.”  As she examined the tops of her hands she added,

   “I just don’t like the odds of things going wrong when they can’t explain how it works.  That’s why I’m here…trying to find someone who knows how it works.”

  She was called to follow a nurse towards a room further down the hall.  I didn’t get her phone number so I could call and check on her progress.  That was two weeks ago and I find myself wondering about her plight.  She told me before she left that she had no choice but to keep looking for a cure.  The idea of having no voice in a world so dependent on communication was like being sentenced to life in prison.  Somehow, I became ensnared when I asked how she was.  I didn’t finish my business; I had no way to stay in touch.  I wonder…genuinely wonder…how long it will be until the noise of my life will drown out concerns over her story; until Sylvia disappears from my attention; along with her voice.