Yackety Yack (Don't Talk Back)

I've had a raspy voice lately. Usually after going to a UT football game or a concert or the bars it would be raspy the next day or four, and understandably so. I tend to get noisey. But I've done none of those things for a little while now and my voice has still been raspy. Hoarse, itchy, sandy, ugly. My voice had gone ugly.
Something was off and I knew it. I'm not supposed to always sound like I've just gotten rabbit punched in the throat by Life.
And as someone who likes to do lots of voices and lots of yelling and lots of loud horrendous singing, this whole raspy action wasn't cutting it.
So I went to the ENT on Monday and was shocked to hear why my voice was raspy. First of all, a quick note on waiting rooms in doctor's offices. This is the most important part of the office to me. Forget everything else. Hell, forget the doctor, even. The waiting room's gotta be immaculate. Because the skeptical first time visitor needs it to be. They're nervous. Who's going to be comfortable handing over a few hundred to a few thousand to a guy who's got an outdated, crinkley issue of 'Bassmaster' on their coffee table. No thanks, Dr. Nick.
Get it together. If I see an issue of 'Home and Garden' from '87, I'm outta there. How putrid. I just got sicker. There's no way they're going anywhere near me if they can't even keep their mag-rack up to date. This being said, if I see an issue of 'Ranger Rick' in there, I'm staying, no matter how out of date it is. That's a game-changer.
So, this ENT checked out. Current mags, big fish tank, mahogany walls, gold fixtures. The real deal.
And I'm glad I stayed, because I found out that I needed surgery. Well, not NEEDED surgery. If I wanted to stop sounding like Joe Camel himself, then I needed surgery.
I had a nodule on my right vocal cord.
Here's what a nodule means, courtesy of Bill Wikkipedia:
A vocal cord nodule is a small, inflammatory or fibrous growth that develops on the vocal cords of people who constantly strain their voices. These are also called screamer's nodule, singer's nodule and teacher's nodule and badass's nodule.
Clearly, I fell into the last one there.
So I'm a loud mouth. That's all he had to say, really. He didn't need to tell me he had to cut anything out of my throat. Just tell me I'm a loudmouth and to turn it down and I coulda moved on with my stolen 'Ranger Rick' mag. Live and let live.
But he didn't. He wanted to cut the growth from my vocal cord.
And he did exactly that this morning. Full general anesthesia, too. Whatta trip. The Anesthesiologist asked if I was ready for my MaiTai, I said 'you bet your ass I am' and then it was bye bye.
Before that, between the waiting room and operating room I was asked by the entire hospital's medical staff who I was and what I was having done. I guess there've been a few swapperoo's as of late, so I'm glad they're doing that. The last thing I needed this week would have been the ol' accidental vagina. Those are the worst. Or the best, actually. Hmm.
How does one heal from the de-noduleing surgery? Easy: don't talk for a week.
Yep. Extremely easy. Just don't talk. Not a word.
Luckily, Jules had the white pad of paper ready to go as soon as I woke up from my drunken anesthesia time and I scratched illegible mumbo-jumbo to her and she nodded politely. I think she's secretly going to like me not talking for once. She says the otherwise, but I'm already getting pretty good at reading people, 4 hours deep into my captivity.
Even crazy people can talk to themselves, btw.
I guess that's why I've got you, Blogger.
We'll be seeing a lot more of each other.
Get used to it.