Voiceless, Literally

So I caught a cold. I noticed as the sore throat crept up on me the day before yesterday - an experience that felt odd in the middle of the afternoon; I think these things usually catch me at night. And it kinda felt like more than a cold - I felt utterly exhausted, I had chills, I didn't feel steady on my feet, and I was uninterested in food. (Yesterday I got home from work, struggled to eat a muffin, and went to bed - at 7:00.) Today I felt somewhat better in most of those areas, but it was a tradeoff - instead I had laryngitis.

I stopped at the post office on my way to work today. (I got books in the mail!) This was my first social encounter of the day, so I didn't realize yet that I had a problem. The guy greeted me with "Hi! How are you today?" and I answered "keugh aahaahahh kegreacht" (sp?). Then I coughed and cleared my throat and tried everything I could but to no avail - I had no voice. When I tried to talk, nothing came. I couldn't even hum. Voice, gone.

I whispered my way through my day at work. There were some aspects of my job that I just let slide because I felt like it was too much. When I was cashing, I couldn't ask the members how they were doing or if I'd missed their coupons, or tell them their totals (they could see it!). As a packer I couldn't ask them members for their cards (that's more the cashier's responsibility, but it's something a good packer does) or ask them if they wanted boxes. And as a supervisor, I couldn't explain thet new Concierge program for electronics. It just took too much voice, and I already had too little. By the end of the day, even my whisper had no volume.

People who didn't know wondered why I was whispering - what's the secret? And I think they thought I was being mean or snobbish when I wasn't saying "hi" or answering their passing "how are you"s. I found my physical boundaries shrinking as I would have to touch people to get their attention, and it wasn't even worth saying anything unless we were standing really close.

Still, it was kinda nice to lean more towards silence than usual. My words mattered more when they were fewer, and I felt like I was giving people something when I spoke (whispered) to them. I had a chance to feel really thankful for little things when I couldn't just call out a shallow "thanks!" And I got to be the recipient of kindnesses. Xamara and Nancy gave me cough drops, Bob told me that of all the people he'd want to lose their voices I'm not one of them, and on my way out Mike pointed at me and said "get better!" And it gave people something to bug me about, which gave me little bits of attention. That's kinda nice when it's good natured.

But... I have plans that require talking! Tomorrow I'm going out for coffee! In two days I have brunch plans! Both those things won't go so well if I can't carry on a conversation. In three days I'm back to school where everyone will ask "How was your Christmas?!" In three days I'm also hosting Blitz Night, and it's nice if I can talk when I have eight other people in my house! And in four days I have choir practice! I wonder how long this will last!

In my online inquiries into laryngitis, I found a cute website:
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/ill_injure/sick/laryngitis.html
There's all sorts of cool stuff on there!