It Happened to Me: I Couldn’t Speak for Two Years
‘I am woman, you can’t hear me whisper’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
By Judy McGuire
For about two years, every time my husband pissed me off, I would text him a list of exactly what he did wrong. Normally, I would have confronted him verbally, using a tone that let him know I meant business (aka, yelling). And while texting did allow me to get things off my chest, it just wasn’t as satisfying as screaming.
In April of 2019, a few days after a routine surgery, I woke up unable to even talk. Even just trying to ask for more pain pills was impossible. “This is weird,” I remember thinking. At first, I thought maybe I caught a bad cold or had a throat infection. But my nose wasn’t runny and my throat didn’t hurt … I just couldn’t push out words that other people could hear.
While I was home recovering, any time I tried to speak, the only thing that came out was a raspy whisper — and even that took effort. Trying to speak a simple sentence left me winded, and most of the time I tried to speak, nobody could understand me anyway. So as soon as I was well enough to walk, I made an appointment with an ENT a friend had recommended.
The doctor (he was one of those “textbook handsome” types) smiled through my explanation of the issue.
His first thought was that I was fucking imagining losing my voice, which was infuriating.
After numbing my nostril, he slid a scope up my nose and down my throat, which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds. He had me make a series of sounds and nodded at the screen, seemingly intrigued by what he was seeing.
As he withdrew the snake, he declared, “You’re not imagining it — your left vocal cord is paralyzed.” Then he added, “Let’s make sure you don’t have cancer.”
Um, what?! I segued into shock, listening in disbelief as he recommended I get a CT scan ASAP to see if I had cancer in my neck.

I’d already had one run-in with cancer, most of my relatives had died of it, and so naturally, I was already trying to decide between cremation and a more eco-friendly natural burial.
Walking out of his office, I began to cry and called Lance, who may be my smartest friend. She declared the cancer idea bullshit and assured me I’d be fine. Within an hour, Lance had sent me three different articles from reputable medical journals describing other people who’d had similar results following surgery (or childbirth) under epidural anesthesia.
Elated, I emailed my doctor the articles. Surely he’d also be impressed with the discovery. He was not. I went ahead with the CT scan, which was thankfully clear.
Cue a years-long journey through medical gaslighting so intensely infuriating it still makes my head hurt to think about it. I saw four different doctors and heard four different things, but nobody could say for sure what happened. Meanwhile, the hospital that screwed me up in the first place was covering its ass by sending me to its neurologist, who shrugged and put me through a brain MRI and took gallons of blood, all proving nothing. They refused to take any responsibility.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Another Jane Pratt Thing to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.