My Personal Story

Heaven knows this won't be interesting to anyone who doesn't have a serious problem with his or her voice. It's not clear that it will interest anyone at all. I can't engage family or friends on this topic. So, I suppose with your forbearance, I'll try you.

In 1989, at the age of 36, I lost my voice. The problem started innocently enough. I had some cold or flu that continued for weeks on end through the Christmas season. Finally, with the New Year, the symptoms of the cold lifted but my voice did not come back. By this, I mean virtually no voice at all – a very light whisper that, if continued for ten or twenty minutes, would exhaust me.

Early in the process, my primary care doctor referred me to one of the city's most prominent otolaryngologists. His examination was very thorough, his manner solicitous, and his diagnosis quite convicted: chronic laryngitis caused by a continuing virus or bacteria. Across the next three months, the physician rotated me through several courses of antibiotics without any improvement.

Though the doctor's confidence did not wane, mine did. Under the theory that I was allergic to something in the house, my wife and I moved into a hotel rental apartment. Together, we ran my small research business – me writing out my ideas on yellow pads, Katherine delivering the messages within the staff. The days were very quiet, and often lonely. The nights were scary, thoughts turning to the possibility that I might never recover my voice. The silence continued for five months.

Owning a small research company should be good for something. Katherine mobilized a small effort to find that narrow voice specialist who had seen just my kind of case. It's hard to overstate the number of university medical centers we visited or (she) called. Finally, the chairman emeritus of otolaryngology at a major academic medical center offered this counsel: "I've not really heard of a case like your husband's. I don't think we can help you here. But, I've heard of a voice specialist in Philadelphia whom everyone goes to as a last resort. You might start there."

By referral and some pleading, Katherine and I arranged an appointment with the specialist in Philadelphia. His offices occupy the whole of a large townhouse dead in the center of the city. His waiting room is a horrific scene of patients – professional singers, actors, teachers, politicians – whispering and choking and presenting a pretty miserable picture. Me no better.

As I walked into the physician's office, he greeted me with words so reassuring I doubt they will be matched again in my lifetime: "Mr. Bradley, I've had occasion already to look at your charts. It's incumbent on me, of course, to examine you personally, but I believe I already know your problem and you will start recovering today."

In the event, he was as good as his word. He predicted and then confirmed that my cold or flu of five months back had settled into the nerves that control the vocal folds – causing what is knows as paresis – partial paralysis of the vocal folds. With some speaking and singing therapy, my voice was back within four weeks.

Would that the story end there. In fact, and over time, I've needed a series of voice surgeries to keep my voice working to meet the professional demands of all day meetings. Largely, the surgery consists of placing implants on either side of the vocal folds – forcing them closer together, allowing me to speak with less effort. In some ways, it's like tuning a piano, getting the distance just right between the cords.

For me, the turn of events since 1989 has been overwhelmingly good. Largely, my voice and my life have been restored to that state of everyday conversation before my voice first left me. For much of this period, I've toured the country delivering (the least interesting) lectures on commercial banking. You would not care to hear them but you would be impressed how long I can go on.

I never intended to meet a voice specialist, let alone some large number of the best voice surgeons in the world. But, managing my voice across thirteen years, I've come to know much of this specialized community very well. Acting wholly as volunteers, six of the most-respected voice specialists in the United States agreed to work with me to develop a website for patients with voice problems. The truth is that this can't possibly interest the casual patient with the most infrequent bout of flu and laryngitis. My purpose in organizing the effort, surely the physicians' purpose in executing the work, is to help the patient with voice complaints who feels truly "stuck," who worries he or she may never regain the prior life. You do not have to be a singer to benefit from voice care. Many professions – teachers, lawyers, businessmen like myself – as well as children, have voice problems or complaints that need to and can be addressed.

No matter how "stuck," the large majority of patients with voice problems can improve or recover their voices completely. This writing may prove a start.