Maybe if I Took a Vow of Silence

I believe that sometimes we are given challenges to help us appreciate our blessings.  So today I am very, very grateful for breath and days when it comes easily.  Ok I said it, I am grateful, can I go back to breathing normal now?  You see I have this vocal chord that doesn't always behave.  Sometimes it sticks to the other one, leaving a smaller space through which to breathe.  It pretty much feels like I'm trying to breathe through a straw.  For years doctors thought I had asthma until it kept getting worse and inhalers were totally useless.  I actually wish it was asthma, because then there'd be some things I could do about it.  But, with Vocal Chord Dysfunction all I can do is wait... try to relax and drink lots of water.  I'm going on two weeks of bad breathing now and I'm getting so fed up with it!  Usually it just comes every few months and hangs around a few days and goes away.  Perhaps I have not been grateful enough and so I am being challenged evermore so?  Well, at least it would help to think there's a reason behind this. 

It's a difficult thing to explain and it's extra frustrating that every third breath I take is a sigh or a yawn. People always think I'm impatient or upset about something or just really need to get some sleep.  Quite the contrary.  I just can't breathe.  The more I talk, the worse it gets.  It interferes with exercising.  I have yawned so much that my jaw hurts.  Oh honestly, it is getting old.

Maybe if I took a vow of silence my vocal chord would forgive me and start to behave.  But talking is overrated, isn't it?  I could be like The Little Mermaid and work my body language!  Maybe I should learn to sign and then I could someday teach our kids to sign when they are just babies and they will be little geniuses.  Or I could fish up an old game of Pictionary and communicate through stick figures.  Or I could resort to only using text messages.  People do that these days, don't they?  You wouldn't be offended if I sent you a text when you are sitting right next to me, would you? 

So please do forgive me when I sigh seemingly impatiently or yawn every other minute.  I do not think you are boring or annoying or impossibly long-winded, I just need you to do all the talking for awhile.  Could I interest you in a game of Pictionary?