The man with no voice!

“Speak now” said the throat specialist as he opened my mouth wide and examined the back of my throat with his cold and slim torch as though he was a mechanic examining an engine!

’I would speak now’ I thought ‘but I’ve got this great-big hand in my mouth that’s presently attached to a cold and slim torch’!

I said a few words(“or at least I thought that I did”) but the throat specialist just shook his head and for me that was both personally devastating and demoralising because I had failed ‘yet again’ to allow the luxury of having food, glorious food, into my mouth and to be swallowed - My mouth hadn’t had the experience of tasting and digesting food for five months now and instead of gaining the required daily intake of the essential nutrients and calories, that my body required from these usually daily solid foods, I would continue to receive this necessary ingredient by an injection of liquid into a clear and plastic tube that hung painlessly down from my now scarred torso and straight into my stomach! These tasteless additions would not ease my cravings for ‘real food’ which would be regularly tested throughout the day because my bed on this hospital ward was directly above the kitchen window, and unfortunately for me, my sense of smell hadn’t completely gone and the familiar aroma’s of freshly cooked chips and other delicious foods frequently wafted ‘up and into’ the open windows on this ward and would cruelly torture my already depressing state!

I had been deprived of food for nearly four months now and this weekly examination of my throat, that would determine my ability to eat and ‘more importantly swallow’ and then be included onto the large central food table and a social introduction with other patients meant so much to me but for weeks now I would only receive a sympathetic “oh well, we’ll try again next week” and their work with me was done!

It was demoralising enough to have had this very sudden and life threatening brain haemorrhage and the disabilities that I endured and then being placed amongst very old patients on this small hospital ward, but then to have another, ‘once free’ and sometimes ‘taken for granted’ functional activities to eat taken away from you was another personally big failure and I would quietly slip deeper into a depressive state knowing that my personal ‘aromatic torture’ from the steam of fresh foods would continue for ‘at least’ another week?

I hadn’t really ‘absorbed’ or acknowledged the situation that I was or had been in but my inclusion into this hospital would, now hopefully be, my final destination before finally returning to my home having previously and unknowingly being in two others and one of those was mostly in a comatose state for about eight weeks!

What was I doing on this ward though? ‘This wasn’t a ward for me’ - “I’m only 24 years of age”! This ward contained about eleven other patients and all of them, except me, was or looked older than fifty, sixty or even seventy years of age! I was very aware and concerned by this fact and didn’t favour this image of being surrounded by possible ‘end of life care’ patients and the threat of death really troubled my young and regularly tormented soul BUT this was the correct ward for me and the troubling thoughts that I had when I was in a coma of being a man of two halves(“one side numb and one side reasonably alright”) was, sadly, harshly correct because the very sudden haemorrhage was caused by high blood pressure and an eruption of a blood vessel in the brain and a weakened heart that were associated with strokes and I would temporarily lose my feelings on my left side, that would include facial movements on the left side and an unusual and confusing double vision and a temporary deafness, especially to the left ear.

I thought that I could speak, I was making all of the right tones but instead my words could only be frustratingly guessed until my Dad eased my frustrations with a homemade alphabet board and I would simply point to each letter for my visitors to establish the words and then the sentence that I would be trying to say! ‘It’s fortunate that I’m a very patient man and that I could remember how to spell correctly but how patient my guests were feeling about this I’ll never know but it did turn out to be quite an entertaining little game for me and sometimes visitors would try to guess the word after one or two letters!

‘One day’ I will be able to speak, all of the progressive signs were frequently told to me- “ooh, your voice is getting a lot better and I can recognise almost every word that you’re saying now”!

To regularly receive compliments like that boosted my confidence and would endorse my determination to progress because my previously comatose state and my inactivity had been physically and mentally demoralising and I was in a situation where I would literally have to start life again with going to the toilet in time, I would learn how to wash and dress myself, learn to read and write and there would be a lot more to come ‘like’ learning to cut food up and to feed myself and to gain good enough balance to sit up on a chair!

The attempts that I made to speak again were progressing well and I was very thankful for that, as I would be for all of my previous senses and abilities- ‘Even though’ I was previously without any vision I was very thankful and relieved to regain a blurred and ‘blood-shot’ sight that was eventually, after several years, improved with many pairs of glasses with corrective lenses;

Most of my other sensory losses would be a temporary annoyance, I was deaf in both of my ears but one of my ears regained full audible capacity and the other one would regain some volume years later and my progression in and ‘soon to be out’ of this ward would be thankfully accelerated by my youth as my progression exceeded some expectations! The ‘art of walking’, despite many, many long and frustrating hours to achieve was very sadly never achieved again and the closest attempt to achieve this was with crutches on a short indoor walk and so life in a wheelchair ensued!

It would be a very traumatic time for ‘not only me’ but for my fiancée, my parents, brothers and all of my other relatives and for those close friends that I had in my life and the abilities that I once had and have got now are greatly appreciated and that feeling has been established during the determined times that I have experienced in regaining them and it was a lesson to remind me of previous occasions of when I ‘could be accused’ of taking them for granted! The experience of having these permanent physical losses(‘some thankfully temporarily’!) would certainly make me feel very fortunate.

The disabilities that I suffer with now, and have since that day in 1992, are bearable but very frustrating ‘at times’ and it’s been personally emotional with frequent depression and somber moments but you really appreciate what you’ve got and ‘especially what you had’(“some people’ have or never will experience those exact momentous occasions”!) and viewing the voluntary inclusion into wars and other personal fighting makes me say “do these people truly understand what they could physically lose and don’t they really appreciate them”? They might be physically very tough but do they truly realise the mental and emotional traumas that they could experience and then endure for the rest of their lives ? My true story would hopefully question some people’s voluntary participation into wars and fighting that could pose a possible threat to their lives, physical and mental state!

‘Speak now’ is a message that is coming from ‘ME’ because, as I sit observing the World, the future doesn’t inspire an excitable enthusiasm towards a possible reincarnation when our priorities seem to be about spending more on wars and for humans to destroy other humans when some natural disasters can achieve more because of oblivion and ignorance to some situations! You then ‘of course’ have medical research and medical conditions lacking funds because money is being prioritised ‘elsewhere’!

When I faced and experienced this very traumatic situation of almost losing my life it really affected and readjusted my priorities in life and my emotions towards ‘what seemed before’ trivial matters and I hope to re-educate some people with my story that will end with ‘SPEAK NOW’ - “YES to nature, NO to war”!