Digital Health Bar

When I was a kid, I used to have the strange belief that we had a limited number of words we could speak in our lifetime; once we ran out, no more talking, no matter how much longer we lived. I know, this sounds like something a parent would say to an overly inquisitive or talkative toddler, but I’ve been told that they never said anything like that to me. I was a weird kid.

I’ve been thinking lately about the last time I was unemployed and searching for my next thing. I had recently had thyroid surgery and the doctor told me that there was a chance they could nick my vocal cords and cause permanent damage. After I went home to recover from the surgery, I wound up getting the hiccups. We called the doctor and he prescribed a surprising remedy; apparently, Thorazine (the anti-psychotic) cures the hiccups instantly. I stopped hiccuping and I was one with the universe for a while. I understood everything; it all made so much sense! I even took notes; they are complete, untranslatable gibberish but I’m sure there is deep meaning in them somewhere.

In the meantime, I did end up losing my voice; I sounded like I had been smoking for a thousand years. The best I could do was a hoarse whisper, which took a lot of effort and wore me out quickly. I had a hard time getting past the phone interview and even those didn’t last long. I felt the need to explain why I sounded like that. I was in my mid-twenties and I sounded like I was well past retirement age.

I finally got my voice back while plummeting 189 feet on an amusement park bungee jump ride. I yelled “Oh F%&K!” as I was falling and my voice suddenly popped back. To this day, if I’ve been talking a lot or have been in a lot of meetings, my voice wears out and the muscles in my throat feel like they’ve had a workout at a gym.

I was somewhat prescient about the finite nature of words as a kid; I just had the time-frame wrong. It’s not a lifetime limit - it’s a daily one. By the end of a long day of meetings, words have a higher cost for me. Maybe that’s not a bad thing; scarcity has a way of making you focus on what and who is really important.