Well, it has been an exciting, eventful, and funfilled week on the vocal front.
Last week, we made a major medication change - I went off of Flovent and on to Qvar. Both are inhaled steroids (but not the Barry Bonds/Jason Giambi type of steroids) used in treating asthma. I'd been on Flovent for almost ten years - it is a very effective asthma preventative. But it has a major downside - large particulate size. Some of those boulder size particles came to rest on the slat rat vocal cords. Which my crack medical staff felt was partly to blame for my hoarseness.
So, last Thursday, I went on Qvar - very small particulate size. No boulders.
Within three days, my hoarseness was almost completely gone. I had a real live voice.
And even better yet - my voice had changed both in pitch and timbre. My voice was at about two pitch steps lower and resonated - really resonated. It was so cool!!! I was beginning to sound like Lauren Bacall.
You'll note that the above paragraph was written in the past tense. sigh...
As it turns out, Qvar and I don't get along. At the same time I was turning into Lauren Bacall, I developed: five canker sores, nasty insomnia, and sinusitis (surprisingly, sinusitis is a possible Qvar side effect). Plus the Qvar didn't work as well for me on the asthma preventation front.
So, I quit using Qvar on Wednesday. But I held off going back on Flovent until today. My weekly speech therapy appointment was yesterday and I wanted my long suffering speech therapist to hear how cool my voice sounded. And she loved it. I told her not to get too attached to it since I was going back on Flovent.
So, I went back on Flovent this morning. And already, my hoarse froggy voice is on its way back.
I went from Lauren Bacall voice to Kermit the Frog.
That is so not right.
4:21:11 PM 
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