Isolated But Not Defeated

One of the so called unwritten rules in blogging is that if you neglect to post for a certain amount of time; long time gaps in particular, is thjat you do not have to explain yourself, just get back into the rhythm and post away. Well, for one, I don’t agree with this, sensing that I at least owe people, readers who devote a little amount of their time to read up on whatever it is that you post in the world wide web in your own little corner.

So the big question looming is, where have I been? Long story, one that dates back to eight months—if you have the time then I can write about the crime,,,,(joking, I haven’t turned criminal since me and my best friend, Ronald, flinched that ‘Debbie does something’ video years ago.)

Losing what is precious
There’s an old Filipino catch phrase that says, ‘Laway lang ang puhunan’, something that is particulary true for me. I am a man who has built whatever it is I have achieved around my ability to speak—pure laway. In high school, I earned the medals and trophies plus a quick buck or two (money prizes were big at that time) from public speaking contests; in college, I had a full scholarship for being in the speech forensics team. My career in government and erstwhile media was built on my ability to speak and write. In fact I would often introduce myself as someone who “Talked for a living, talked for a hobby and taught people how to talk the talk….I talk too much.”

I lost all that in April 2010.

I woke up one morning in mid-April with a hoarse voice, went to the bathroom and gargled hot water and then went back to bed—when I woke up at lunch time, I could barely muster a whisper. When I went to see the doctor that afternoon (one of the five doctors I would be seeing over the next eight months), he said I just had a case of laryngitis and prescribed a set of antibiotics.

My usual bout with hoarseness; I can remember coming down with it for at least a few times before, was that it would be gone in a day or two. After almost a week, it was still there and so I went back to see the doctor again—who unfortunately wasn’t there and was sent off to see another doctor; who also gave the same advice—laryngitis.

Two weeks had passed and I was still hoarse—I could speak, but I sounded really awful. Had gone back to see the lady doctor I saw weeks before and she could not find a reason for the hoarseness, saying that if my cough and cold would go then eventually my voice would go back to normal.

Nothing went back to normal. All of a sudden, everything seemed to have caved in on me—the realization that I would never be able to speak clearly like a toastmaster, sing like I used to and communicate normally with the people around me. My voice, the tool that got me through life, was now gone.

Not wanting to alarm my wife or show a sense of being overly disturbed by what was happening, I continued to act as if the whole thing wasn’t a big deal; showing I had other skills that would eventually get us by. We did try to go and see other doctors and find out what was happening but all we got were different answers, different medication but no genuine results—the voice was still hoarse.

I have had a long line of reasons from different doctors—gastric acid, chronic laryngitis, tonsillitis, heck I would even hear some wise crack remark that I was probably hexed or something by someone.

During the long commute home from work or times when I would be alone in my room, I would often ponder on why this was happening. Did I strain my voice too much? Did I contract something contagious? Is this cancer?

It would be really embarrassing when I would meet acIquaintances and old friends and I couldn’t speak up well. I mean, here was Anton Deleon, the great debater, the man who could sell you Luneta at the flick of a finger and a twclist of the tongue—now can’t even barely muster a clear wheeze and a whisper that is enough to say hi and hello.

Life can be very cruel at times, I thought, playing a really bad joke on you. It becomes more painful when it dawns on you that it’s gone and you’re done for the ride.

Before I knew it, five months had already passed, then six, seven, eight…By this time, I had already accepted that my voice would never come back, but a minor laser procedure would at least return a little normalcy to its tone and make me sound less throaty so to speak.

(To be continued…)