Originally Published 4/5/13
Well, I made it out to the cinema with friends, which was great. It was really nice to switch my brain off for a couple of hours and forget everything. It's surprising just how much time you spend thinking about cancer and chemo and radiotherapy - you try not to, but its there all the time eating away at you (possibly literally) and making you think about it.
The thing that got me today was, why the hell has my laugh changed? I don't laugh as I used to, its totally different now. In my head my voice hasn't changed, but when I open my mouth to speak or laugh its totally at odds with the inner voice. Will that change, I wonder? What is so different about me that has caused such a drastic change in the sound of my laugh?
It must be a combination of factors, limited mobility in my jaw (yawning is a silent agony right now) and tongue, combined with changes to my bottom lip and a general loss of sensation there. My laugh is something that was mine, it kinda defined how I sounded in social situations - now it's not me any more, not like it used to be. Perhaps it'll all recover over time, once I am through the radio and chemotherapy I will get a full course of speech therapy - nothing can be done yet whilst I am still so soon out of the operation and they won't do much one I start the next bit simply because everything will get sore and stiff and painful before it gets better again. The changes in my voice and my laugh have had a massive impact on how I feel in social situations, I'm getting used to the way people concentrate on my lips now when I am talking to them, the way that they tend to lean in towards me to hear me better, but it all makes me feel more uncomfortable than I used to. Don't get me wrong, I've never been comfortable talking with people I don't know - but now I feel more conscious of it. Me being me I think this is actually making me do it more, simply out of sheer stubbornness, so perhaps its not a bad thing.
