{"id":6255,"date":"2014-04-07T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=6255"},"modified":"2014-04-17T22:12:57","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T03:12:57","slug":"losing-my-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=6255","title":{"rendered":"Losing My Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Walking<\/a>

(A bouquet of fading roses. Still so pretty.)<\/p><\/div>\n

A few weeks ago, Ryan came down with a bad cough and cold. I thought it might be bronchitis, which I had earlier this year, but the doctor said it was some sort of upper-respiratory infection going around, and it could last up to three weeks!\u00a0 Yuck.\u00a0 I did my very best not to catch it, so, of course, I did.\u00a0 I’ve spent the last few weeks coughing and coughing, but I haven’t felt sick, thankfully.<\/p>\n

Then two weekends ago, my voice started to fail, disappearing completely that Saturday.\u00a0 Since then, it’s been fluctuating between a whisper, a screech, and a croak.\u00a0 My throat didn’t really hurt, but I would start coughing in the evenings, and I’m sure that contributed to it.\u00a0 It’s slowly getting better, though my ribs are really sore from coughing so much.<\/p>\n

\"Walking<\/a>

(These petals fell as I was taking pictures.)<\/p><\/div>\n

I suppose, in some ways, spending a week without your voice could be introspective and even healing, but for the mom of two little boys, it’s been extremely frustrating.\u00a0 Every morning, I woke up hoping that my voice had returned, and every morning it hadn’t.\u00a0 I did my best to whisper (you’re not supposed to with laryngitis) and squeak to get my thoughts across.\u00a0 Ryan had to interpret what I was saying at times, and we both got pretty good at anticipating what the other person might say next. Except when we were wrong, which happened a lot.<\/p>\n

I also had errands to run and appointments to attend, so I got pretty good at pointing to my throat, quickly apologizing, and then trying my best to say what needed to be said.\u00a0 I went through the drive-thru at Starbucks, and since it was empty, I drove straight up to the window to place my order. The attendant looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but she still got my order right.<\/p>\n

I started to worry that maybe I’d lost my voice forever.\u00a0 It’s not such a bad thing in some ways, and I’m a quiet person by nature, but I rely on my voice to to be heard in a noisy house full of boys.\u00a0 I felt pretty powerless without the means to communicate easily, and I lost my cool on more than one occasion recently when I felt I wasn’t understood.\u00a0 It’s been incredibly frustrating, to say the least.<\/p>\n

My voice is starting to come back now, slowly, though it fades at the end of the day.\u00a0 I’ve lost my voice before, but never for this long, and I really hope it doesn’t happen again for a long, long time.\u00a0 The good news is that I’ve felt really inspired lately, and I have a week’s worth of posts to share with you.\u00a0 I guess there’s always a bright side!<\/p>\n

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