If you’ve been around me the last week, you know I haven’t been able to talk. Even in passing, I haven’t been able to throw out a “hello”, and the struggle to tell the checkout person at Davies Marketplace that I’m using declining dollars is actually torture. 

The first thing my parents asked me –when they called and I was physically unable to speak – was, “You’re in Blugold Radio, an acapella group and your second major is speaking Spanish. Why and how did you lose your voice?”

The weekend of Feb. 21 was the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Youth Conference Awards. I was lucky enough to be able to represent UW-Eau Claire, but I was also recovering from another cold that had gotten into my lungs.

A fun fact about me is that, technically, I am immunocompromised. A healthy asthma diagnosis came at age 16 after I kept nearly passing out after my races in track and field. 

That means that if I’m not very careful, a casual cold can quickly become a bronchitis-like viral lung infection that keeps me bedridden for a couple of days. Usually, with medication, it ends up fine, and nothing is scarred but my pride.

Unbeknownst to me, going to a very vocal-straining conference right after coughing up bronchitis goop for a few days can make you lose your voice. Not just a little hoarse – completely unable to physically speak. 

I could go day-by-day to recount the horrors of being unable to speak. Instead of subjecting people to the struggles I had for pages and pages, I’ll simply go through the worst aspects of losing your voice when you are living a week in my life.

No Spanish

Latin American studies – language emphasis is my second major after journalism. As someone who went abroad just a couple of months ago and has spent a large quantity of my time listening to or reading Spanish, not being able to speak it felt debilitating.

Not to mention that I wasn’t able to participate in Spanish class for the week. At least my professor was kind enough to not call on me at all. 

Something interesting kept happening when I went to speak and no sound came out. I would translate into Spanish to try and speak only to find that trying to speak in my second language still didn’t make noise. I kept forgetting that choosing a different language wouldn’t restore your ability to verbalize ideas.

Fifth Element

Losing the ability to sing was a symptom of losing my voice. I missed about a week of rehearsal for my acapella group Fifth Element, which I tried to make up for by listening to the repertoire for the semester religiously. 

Even though I couldn’t sing or talk, I was still able to VP (vocal percussionist A.K.A. beatboxing). This exciting discovery was one of the only reasons I stayed sane while trying to practice music this week.

I’ve been singing since forever, and often, it feels like an alternative to speaking. Any “Victorious” fans in the room will remember the crossover movie “iParty with Victorious” with “iCarly” where Cat sings instead of speaking? Unfortunately, I could do neither. 

My major stress relief in singing was gone, and I felt the added pressure of missing valuable rehearsal time. I was lectured extensively by members of the group who major in vocal or music fields about how to get my voice back faster.

This led to a strict regimen of gargling salt water, vocal steaming, tea with honey and talking only when extremely necessary.

Nothing to do

AI text-to-speech was my savior the past week. That and my notes app on my phone. When I hung out with my friends, it was common for me to play an AI voice joke about two minutes after the appropriate time to make that joke. 

Not being able to speak also meant  lowkey fading into the background everywhere I went. It’s hard to imagine how one would function without being able to speak – one week was long enough for me.

The jokes about needing me to speak louder, people forgetting I was in the room and not being able to participate in anything really made me want to pick up a certificate in American Sign Language in case this happens again. 

Home

I ended up going home at the end of the week to enter a coma-like state hoping to recover my voice. My parents got me a cheap humidifier, fed me free food and let me sleep in the fresh air of Deer Run Drive. 

Even just cuddling my dogs and letting my parents yap at me while I was mute and watching old TV shows healed me faster than the breakneck speed of university life. 

I think going home was the best way to recover my voice and get mentally better after feeling like a discarded version of myself all week. 

Now that my voice is slowly coming back, I’m able to look back and laugh. In the moment, though, losing my voice for a week straight can really mess with my mentality. 

Zero out of 10 experience. I would not recommend it.

Pawlisch can be reached at [email protected].