Speech Therapy

In a room filled to the brim with TBI patients, stroke patients and speech therapists I began my long road to getting my voice back. Starting out after my coma is was a barely audible whisper. Your throat muscles are like every other muscle you have in your body. They get weak when not used and you expend a lot of energy attempting to get them back to where they were prior.

Also, a person with a TBI has to re-learn all the inflection, tone and volume they used before. Like I said, barely a whisper answered the infamous "Do you know who you are?" question. I searched my lungs for air and listened to that voice with fear and embarrassment. This wasnt even me. I couldnt walk, use my hands and now even communicate.

Seeing my obvious fear and how hard it was for me to form words nurses asked me to use the eye-blinking method. One blink of my eyes for "'yes"', two blinks for "no".

Back to that room. My speech therapy did not officially start until after the eye-blinking fun at the first nursing home. It started in the room at the rehab hospital in Florida. Stick my tongue out. Move my tongue to the left. Then to the right. You get the drill. Feeling hopeless as I feared my greatest skill (the power of the spoken word) was taken away. Hidden, so I couldnt show happiness, convince, debate issues or even persuade someone I was interviewing. Aside from the persuasion tactics, I was scared I wouldnt even be able to ask a cogent question that people could understand.

We were all told to do exercises in our rooms during our "down time". This required us to press our tongue against a spoon both side-to-side and up-and-down. This would strengthen the muscles of our tongue and, in turn, help us enunciate our words. We would sound"crisper" and not as deliberate as many of us were at the time. Straining our words so people could understand us.

Some around the hospital did not make it to speech therapy. They were confined to using pen boards or an electronic device which spelled out words for them and then generated an automatic voice which enabled them to communicate without the power of their own voice.

My voice came back (albeit slurred and sounding half-drunk) in the second nursing home in Ohio. A map of my Lewis & Clark journey of rehab for you might not be a bad idea after all! I spent hours at night using the "spoon exercise method". When it was day time and my room was unoccupied I would read a book out loud. I would practice a word over-and-over that I had mis-spoken that very day. You can call it perseveration or just determination to get better. Whichever works for you.

I started speaking quicker and with inflection. It did not sound strained and my pacing of breath was normal. This is a short page because my speech went very smoothly comapared to my other therapies. My friends from college tease me that not even a TBI can shut me up. Men mask their emotions with humor.

I am truly grateful that my eyesight was not damaged and my ability to communicate came back quickly. Reading and speaking were crucial to me.

I struggled for a while after I was released from speech therapy with things such as ordering food from a drive-through. I would go in because it seemed as though people could understand me better if they could actually see my lips move.

In a Target a year later I was confronted by a lady in line with her children who couldn't believe somone "didnt have the self-respect to not be drunk in a store in front of children". I would love to tell you I took it in stride and didnt tell her off. Everyone has thier weak moments.

Six months after that I was pulled over for going five miles over the speed limit. A warning was issued until I started saying "thank you". Then came the: "have you been drinking sir?" To avoid the field sobriety test (walking a straight line) I explained the situation to the officer. He asked me for a "card" or a "doctors note" explaining my disability. I should not be a smart-ass to police officers. I know. But I was. A doctors note? What are you my third-grade teacher? Why dont we do a Breathalizer instead?" The second my smart-ass comments came out of my mouth I waited for the cuffs. But to my surprise he laughed and mentioned he couldn't smell anything on me and let me go home.

I havent had anything even close to a situation like that since. I feel I sound back to normal. For some reason answering machines bother me but i'm positive that fear will pass a well.