I KNEW my doctor was the best diagnostician since Greg House! The man is brilliant! When I think of how many physicians out there have no imagination and even less bedside manner, I am ever grateful for my PCP. Stumbled on him by chance; he was subbing for my regular doc once when I got sick, and I realized I liked him a WHOLE lot more than the first guy. Since then, he has seen me, Tim and eventually both boys (as adults), and I wouldn't switch if you paid me. And since I work in a medical center, that's saying a lot.
Anyway, the next chapter in the breathing/coughing/singing - or not - story.....I do not have asthma, but we'd pretty much figured that out anyway. What he suspects, and what would make sense, is that a sneaky case of acid reflux (diagnosed by my GI Guy during an endoscopy) is creating havoc with my vocal chords. Hmmmm.... the weird thing, as I told Dr. J, is that I have no symptoms. To which he responded, yes, you do: your voice is your symptom. Duh.....so, we're back on Prilosec to calm things down, and I'm being referred to an ENT/voice specialist to see what's up. Never in a million years would I have come up with that kind of connection...yet another reason I'm so grateful for his talent and care.
It still kind up catches me up short.....over the past several years, I've been wondering what would happen to my voice as I continued to age. My voice at 15 was not my voice at 30, nor was it my voice at 45. I know that voices mature and that can be a good thing (Lord knows it was for me), but it's not endless, nor without limit. I admit that I have taken that gift for granted. I don't know what it would be like NOT to sing, since I've been doing it as long as I can remember. But I'm pretty sure it is a gift that will not always be with me; most elderly singers don't open their mouths and sound like they did when they were 40. How sad that must be! Will I hear it? Will I know? Will it mortify me to the point where I no longer try to sing? It's such an intrinsic piece of my persona that I really can't imagine losing it....it would be one step shy of losing sight, or hearing, or speech, or mobility. I think I will pray that I don't live long enough, or that I lose my awareness before I realize that I can no longer generate music with my voice. Stay tuned....
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