Crocuses and My Voice

Finally! The sun came out today, and the three or four clumps of purple crocuses in my front yard, which have been up for about a week, opened today. They're gorgeous. Ever since they started showing purple, they've been tightly wrapped around themselves--like me hugging myself, trying to keep warm. (We actually had some snow on the ground Saturday evening.) But as I say, the sun is out, and it's warming up quickly--they say tomorrow and Wednesday the highs will be well into the 60s. All I want to do is sit out on the front stoop and admire the flowers. Oh, and pump up my bike tires to see if I can manage 15 minutes on the trail near my house.

But what I'll spend time on, instead, is getting ready for a little in-town writing retreat next week, to work on revisions to the fear manuscript. I read through it last week (for the first time in two years), and was surprised and pleased to realize it won't take as much work as I--uh--feared. (To use the word loosely.) But I have a big pile of clippings and other material that's accumulated in the years since I finished the manuscript, and this week I plan to go through all that stuff and read it and sort it into folders related to each chapter. Next week, I'll just head every morning by 9 AM to Edenfred, the local artist's retreat where I've been generously offered a place to work, away from temptations like coffee with friends, the gym, email, and even this blog. So no post next Monday. Sorry, but if I don't completely clear the decks, I won't get the revisions done. Procrastination is my middle name. I should probably take solitaire off the laptop, too!

An email from an old friend who recently read my blog said it sounded like now I could talk, even on the phone. I realized that I haven't really made clear what's going on with my voice. It's true that the chemotherapy I've been on since last fall has improved matters significantly. My voice, as a number of people have commented in the past month or so, is much stronger. I attribute this (with no actual evidence) to the tumor on my vagus nerve letting loose its grip. I can breathe more easily, and speak more easily. But things are not perfect. I imagine the tumor is still there, hanging on a little. Or maybe it permanently damaged the nerve. The ENT doc I saw last fall said that sometimes paralyzed vocal folds recover completely; sometimes they don't, even if the cause (which could just be a virus, though obviously that wasn't my experience) disappears.

I can make myself heard fairly easily in relatively quiet places, but not in noisy restaurants or, say, on a busy street when a truck or bus is passing. I can have short phone conversations on good connections (usually land lines, but sometimes cell phones) with people who have no hearing problems (and you'd be surprised how many people, young and old, do--even if they're not aware of it). But I actually find even short conversations, like the one I'm about to make to schedule an oil change for my car, tiring. And the long, lovely conversations I used to have with friends and family are still quite impossible. I can speak in public with a microphone, but again, it's tiring, and I still need to share the podium with others, like my friend and co-editor Robin, who will come with me in the next couple of weeks when I have been asked to give two out-of-town talks about our retirement poems anthology.

What makes speaking tiring, I think, is partly psychological (will I make myself understood?) and partly physical. I just don't have enough breath to sustain a long sentence. I speak in phrases. I would like very much to be able to sing, for example, but when I tried it in the car a couple of days ago, I could only get out a word or two before I had to stop for breath. It's this limited aerobic capacity, also, which affects how much physical activity I can do. I'm much, much better than I was last fall, when I could only walk about a quarter of a city block before stopping, gasping to catch my breath. But on Friday night, when a friend and I parked and then walked a block uphill to a theater, I was very slow. Level is good--Robin and I walk for 45 minutes or an hour in the mall, and I don't gasp at all. Uphill is problematic. But I'm working on it. And I realize that if I were not working out several times a week, walking and going to strength training and spinning classes at the gym, I wouldn't be doing as well as I am.

And now, with the sun and the warmth, the crocuses and I have the whole outdoors to explore, at last!

Remember--no new blog post next Monday, but you can use the time to read old posts and post your own comments! And I'll see you back here on April 28. Cheers!