Silenced

I've lost my voice before. When it's happened in the past, I didn't think much about it. It was almost a kind of novelty. Besides that, it never lasted long. But for the past week and a half, I've been effectively silenced. I got sick (likely bronchitis) while on vacation in Montana. Nearly two weeks later, my voice has still not fully recovered. Most of my other symptoms haven't been that bad. I've had a few choice coughing fits, a sore throat, and some congestion. But the loss of my voice has been the most vexing issue. It's actually depressed me a little. The simple medical problem of hoarseness means I...can't....work. I've never really thought about how much I depend on my voice for a living. But when the ability to speak is suddenly taken away...that simple fact is much more obvious. I'm at work tonight and it's going okay. I'd say my voice is functioning at 80 to 85 percent of normal. But I've missed five days of work so far because I can't anchor a newscast. I tried pulling it together Wednesday morning. Forty minutes in to our two hour show I had another coughing fit and had to call it quits. This work absence comes on the heels of my week long vacation to Montana. I've basically been off work for two weeks. I hate the feeling. Sometimes I complain about my job but there's no better way to be thankful for it than when you want to work and can't. I've got to make it through another half hour newscast tonight and then I have four days off in a row. I'm sincerely hoping I'll be ready to anchor come Wednesday morning. If not...I'm going to have myself a pity party. Never again will I view a lost voice as some kind of novelty.