Phases 1 & 2: Denial & Anger

In March of 2009 I went to New York and saw my college buddy playing the lead in In The Heights on Broadway. I was inspired. I had been doing a lot of theatre since my return in April of 2008, but no musicals and shows like that are the reason I was drawn to musicals in the first place. Shortly thereafter I auditioned for (and booked) my first musical in 11 years: Hair with The Willows Theatre Company, which presented me with a few firsts: my first musical in ages, my first equity show (I collected EMC points) and the first time I've been naked in front of more than 1 person at a time. It was a five-week run and I was sick for 3 of them, struggling to keep my voice so I could sing my solo, "Frank Mills" (not to mention the plethora of company numbers) six times a week. By the last performance I was so hoarse I had to sing my song an octave down. Embarrassing. I chocked it up to winter germs and went on to do my next musical. It was a three week run and I was sick for one of them. Coincidence? I was inclined to think not, but I was perplexed. If this is what I'm "supposed to be doing," why am I struggling so much? I have a history of throat issues dating back to my traumatic college years, but I thought I'd put all that behind me. I'd had my epiphanies, I'd stopped hiding in restaurant management jobs, I was persevering, so WHY?

I am a huge proponent of analyzing what's going on in your life when illness or pain persists. In my experience they are directly related to one another, as the body tries to find some way to get you to "hit rock bottom" with a certain issue so you finally face it. Because the root of the problem was in my throat I asked myself what I wasn't saying that needed to be said. After reflecting on the subject, I came up with quite a few things. I realized, for one, that two days before I got sick during the run of Hair, I got a text message from my ex-husband, whom I hadn't heard from in over two years. We started corresponding again and every time his name came up in my inbox my stomach got tied up in a big old knot and my heart started racing (not in a good way). I'd brushed that feeling off for awhile but now, I realized, I needed to deal with it. I politely asked him to stop contacting me, and gave him an alternative, in case he needed to get in touch with me for some reason. There were several other things as well, and I did my best to find my voice, and deal with each one thoroughly. I also decided to find a voice teacher and take lessons again after nearly 13 years without them. The next musical I was in I didn't lose my voice once, even though it was a vocally demanding and strenuous role. Coincidence? I'm inclined to think not. However, the problem wasn't completely resolved. There were still parts of my range that I couldn't access. My voice teacher (who is more than just a singing teacher, she's a voice movement therapist) and I had been working to clear the aforementioned trauma, and she became concerned that it was more than that, that something physical was impeding my ability to produce certain sounds. At her request, I went to see a specialist.

The doctor sprayed my nose and throat with a numbing spray and stuck a scope with a camera on the end of it up my nose and down my throat. (It didn't hurt in the moment but when that numbing spray wore off I felt like she'd used a knife in place of the scope.) She had me sing and otherwise make sounds as she took a video of my vocal chords. There they were, those pesky little impeders. The "nodules" as she called them are small and translucent (it could be worse) but definitely there, and definitely a problem. The doctor wasn't forthcoming. I would have left with nothing but the knowledge of their existence had I not pulled her teeth to get more information. She told me they would take a year to go away, prescribed Prilosec (part of the problem is acid reflux), told me vaguely what foods to stay away from and referred me to a speech pathologist. She said it would be nice if I were a computer geek instead of working in a restaurant, but made no effort to get me to change my ways. I showed the pictures of my vocal chords to my voice teacher and we began discussing the things I would need to do to start the healing process. At that point, though, my heart wasn't really in it. Denial had reared its ugly head and I was conveniently avoiding the implications of the presence of nodules. For several more weeks, I continued to audition and record music and pretend that everything was okay, pretend that my career wasn't in jeopardy, pretend that if I plugged my ears and chanted "la la la" it would all go away.

During those weeks, every so often Denial would take a break and make room for Anger to come out and play. I was essentially being told that if I was going to have a singing career with any kind of longevity, I was going to have to completely change my life. I'd have to change the pitch of my speaking voice because the low voice I've had ever since I can remember is not serving me and is, in fact, part of the problem. But I'm a singer and an actor and my voice is my identity. I'd have to stay away from alcohol and really watch what I eat which means no restaurants and no wine. But I'm a foodie and the way I socialize, my joy (and my job), is dining out, trying new restaurants and drinking fabulous bottles of wine with friends. So... in order to have a career I have to change my identity? How is that fucking fair? How the hell am I going to do that? I already cut out caffeine and carbonated beverages to help allay the acid reflux and I already changed my diet to compensate for some recently developed food allergies, and now the list of things I can't eat or drink just keeps getting longer. Fuck everything, fuck singing, fuck my voice, fuck my throat, fuck the world, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"Some of us just need the universe to take a big dump on our front lawn," my voice teacher said (have I mentioned how much I love her?) We know what we need to do and we easily talk the talk, but it isn't until we smell the dooky on the lawn that we start to walk the walk. "But I already changed so much. I guess it's just not enough," I retorted like a three year old who'd just had her toy snatched out of her hands by her big brother. "Maybe they were bigger before and more calloused," she said, "who knows, maybe the changes you've made have helped but you have no point of comparison." Yeah, maybe this is just the last step in a long line of changes I was forced to make because of seemingly unrelated issues. Maybe my body created allergies to certain foods because, unbeknownst to me, they were feeding the creation of the polyps. Who the fuck knows. But fuck. It still fucking sucks.