23 August - Some surprises

I am actually flabbergasted about recent events.

I had a really bad night the other night.

To start off with, my sinuses were clogged up again and I had to fight to breathe. Used the suggestion from my doctor about spraying some saline up the nasal passages to clear the blockage and found that useful if somewhat time consuming. I have noted that dried blood seems to be the cause of the blockage. I put this down to the fact that the heating in the house dries the air and so gives me a condition that I reported on in an earlier bulletin.

Since this situation is literally keeping me up nights I have tried to turn the heating down and then finally off. To no avail - the condition persists.

So I will be mentioning this at the next doctors visit and we will see whether a referral to an ENT specialist is indicated and whether this will reveal something more.

I also experienced one of those now rare attacks of reflux that resulted in my having to cough somewhat violently for some time to clear some obstruction. When you can not breathe and have reflux to boot I can assure you that getting those airways clear is a matter of life and death - or at least feels like it.

Having finally managed to clear the various passages I found to my incredible surprise that I could once again talk normally!

What? Yeah, normally. No straining, no blocked sinuses, real vocalisation. I tried out the range of this amazing discovery and found I could without effort actually manage at least one or two full octaves of pure sound.

Amazing!

What is even more surprising is that the condition persisted for around 12 hours before once again disappearing.

Now I have NO idea what happened or why, but for obvious reasons I want it back.

I will be asking both my doctors and the speech therapist what the hell is going on. I am just hopeful that they tell me the good news that they now know how to get my voice back. I am of course fearful that they have find a reason for the blocked sinuses and that the reason is not good news!

Still there is no point in hiding - I have to know what is going on so that I can deal with whatever the outcome.