I got up way too early this morning because Nathan Jr knocked over a lamp at 7:30. I may have fallen asleep again because Mark did have to wake me up when he heard my cell phone ringing. It was Johnny's wife calling to tell me my appointment had been moved a little earlier. Not too early, but I got on down to San Antonio as quickly as I could so I wouldn't be late.

I went to Johnny Bush's house (how cool is that??). He has a beautiful home he has lived in for 35 years right in the city (it seemed... I had no idea where I was in relation to downtown) and was also surrounded by mesquite trees and oaks and deer. Beautiful place... swimming pool, too. They invited me in and we had a long talk about "our" condition and compared notes. He had many experiences like I have had, but he had them for THIRTY YEARS. My God, I think I would have had to slash my wrists.

His driver took us over to the doctor's office and I filled out the paperwork and then met the cute, young doctor. He did the scope thing that my last ENT had done, but his had a camera on it. He had me say different things and recorded it all. He showed me how my vocal cords work. Most noticable was that they are a nice white and are not swollen. That proves that it is not acid reflux making me talk this way. But when I say words that begin with E, particularly, my cords and the "false vocal cords" around them clench up like a fist. Now when you are making sounds, air MUST come through between your vocal cords. But my vocal cords are spasming and closing out all air and sound momentarily. He said it was very obviously spasmotic dysphonia.

The scope was pretty painful with the first go round. More painful than when I had had it done last time. Then they went in for a second time with a young resident running the scope and he used a long device to drip anesthetic on my vocal cords. They did that four painful gagging times. VERY uncomfortable. When the cords were dead, he went in with the needle and put in Botox into each side. I felt the needle a little on one side, but it wasn't as bad as the scope and the drip. And this was the THIRD time that they had put the scope in. eeek

Finally, everything came out of my nose and throat and I was just left with a dead feeling in my throat, but not too bad. We left the doctor's office and I had a coughing fit in the car that was frightening because I couldn't stop. Sort of like a hacking tickling cough but big coughs. It did stop, I took off my outer shirt to cool off and took some deep breaths.

We went back to Johnny's house and he gave me a video of some vocal exercises and wished me good luck. He had to go on to another doctor appointment so I left from there.

They had warned me about swallowing trouble, but I didn't have any. I stopped soon for a Coke and it felt great. My throat was a little sore from the needles and scope and it soothed it a lot.

I got in this evening and went on to the cafe for the Double D show. My voice was good and strong for the intro, better than it has been in a long while. I know the Botox hasn't taken effect, so maybe it was just excitement or rest from not having been on the air today. Whatever, it felt good to be able to talk.

Double D did a great show, as always, but our radio broadcast went kaput, sadly. I hope we can do a rebroadcast of the show because it was so good.

Now I'm home and hungry. Since I now know it isn't acid reflux making me struggle, I'm going to go eat something!