Soul Song

Chapter 2

"Allie, time to get up. Allie? Allie, I'm coming up there, get out of bed." I hear mom coming up the steps but it doesn't register. I hardly realize she's there, all my attention is focused on something else. Mom comes into my room and sees that I'm sitting up in bed.

"Allie, I called for you to get up, why didn't you respond." I try to tell her but can't. My voice is gone. It's not gone like a sinus infection gone where you can feel that your throat is clogged and stuff. It's gone as in it feels like it should be there but just isn't. Something's got to be wrong with this.

"Allie, are you ok?" I do my best at signing to her that I can't speak. She get's the message.

"You can't speak. Well, everyone loses their voice every once in awhile. It'll be fine in a day or so, you'll just have to lay out of music class."

Great, the only class that I really enjoy, other than math, (I have my reasons) I now can't do for a while. I just nod to mom and continue to get ready for school. As we went throughout the day, I just gave the notes to the teachers and kept a notebook handy so that I didn't have to try to do sign language all day.

My voice was out for a few days and mom was starting to get concerned but then it began to come back again. I was still confused because nothing felt any different with my throat. One thing that I didn't mention to my mother was the fact that I was having trouble breathing sometimes. I would take in a breath but it sorta felt like it leaked out somewhere and wasn't getting to my lungs. I ended up gasping for my breath just going down the hallways. The school nurse noticed though and called my mother.

Normally if I'm hurt or sick or something, I try not to mention it just because I don't want to be an inconvenience to anybody so mom had already suspected that there was bound to be something that I wasn't telling her. I didn't get fussed at too much but I did have to go to the doctor which is basically my worst nightmare. I'm really weird, I would rather go to the dentist office rather than go for a physical. I don't fight against it too much though, because I already know it's a losing battle, such as this one.

"Look I know this is gonna be miserable for you but would you like to not be able to breathe for the rest of your life and not have a voice, or do you want to get this fixed?"

"Look, I don't mind going to one doctor but you telling me to be prepared for a long day out, kinda tells me that we are going to be at more than one. Did you already make me a bunch of appointments with other doctors or something?"
"No, of course I didn't but, I have a feeling that Dr. Adams will probably send you somewhere else because I'm not quite sure that this is something that they can take care of."

"What makes you say that?" my voice is getting more hoarse by the minute and it's beginning to become hard to breathe again

"Well, your throat feels fine and yet you can't speak then it gets hard to breathe. They are just going to say that this is some strange cold or something and I really don't think it is. I think this may be something that needs to be looked into a little more. Whether Dr. Adams sends you to another doctor or not, based on her diagnosis, I may take you to another one that will probably know more about this and you are going to tolerate it, understood?"

"Yes ma'am." she nods in victory and I slump down in my seat in preparation for a torturous day. Here we are at Dr. Adams' office. This should be a blast. I already expect them to pronounce my last name wrong. I don't know what in Loche is so hard to pronounce but they mispronounce it every time. They always pronounce it like "lush" when it's supposed to be pronounced like "lock". I mean, come on people, it's not that hard.

"Allison Lush."

You've got to be kidding me. I don't know why I'm surprised but you'd think that me having been a patient here since I was born would kind of help me out on the name thing. For the first three years I could talk, I'd correct them but realized that was a hopeless cause so I just hope they'll figure it out eventually. When I turn eighteen in two years, I have to go to mom and dad's doctor's office. Yippee, it can only go downhill from here.