Dear Grandchildren,
You know that my voice condition (spasmodic dysphonia) was the element that led to our initial assignment in Southern California. (I think that I am glad not to have been there because of BYU’s heartbreaking loss to sixteen-point favorite UCLA last evening.) You also know that I found on line a doctor in Istanbul who could give me the needed shot every three months or so. But for a lot of reasons, I decided to find someone closer. Last Wednesday, I went for my initial shot. (Grandma thought that I should wait at least another two or three weeks. But I accepted the appointment.) We had checked out the busses that take us to the suburb where the doctor’s medical school office is located. I was confident. Grandma stayed in the apartment that morning. When I arrived at the hospital/medical school, and tried to find my way to the "third floor," I was kicked off two elevators that were going to the wrong "third floor." (One elevator had a person lying on a gurney inside it.) After several false starts (I don’t read Turkish so well, actually very, very little), I found my way to the right place.
When I presented the doctor’s name, the receptionist ran out the door and found the doctor’s assistant who invited me into a very modest office where I was shown a stack of consent-giving papers to read and sign. I read and signed. Then we went to the treatment room. Except for the reclining chair that I sat in, nothing in the room was permanent. Everything else could be packed up in a valise or rolled out of the room on wheels. I had the sense of impermanence or, perhaps, trial and error. The doctor and two assistants proceeded to go to work. First, the chair was inclined backward. Then the headrest was inclined further backward. A real stretch for my neck. "Are you comfortable?" "Yes," I said. Next, one of the assistants put an endoscope through my nose so that the doctor could see into my throat that he had not pushed the needle in too far, that is, through the wall of my voice box next to my throat. (Aren’t you just enjoying this?) Mostly, the endoscope tickled, but occasionally gagged me. The doctor injected half of the botox dose on the right side of my adam’s apple, and then half on the left side. But it took a while. And a fair amount of poking.
The doctor asked me not to swallow. Immediately, of course, the most intense feeling came over me to swallow. I tried everything I could think of not to swallow. I sang in my head, I breathed shallow breaths, and so on. But I did swallow from time to time, much to the disappointment of the doctor. I could feel the liquids in my mouth pouring out of their glands and I fought the urge to get rid of them by swallowing. (Where is that cute dental assistant who leans in and vacuums those juices out of my throat?) After about ten minutes, from the beginning of the first injection, we were finished. I certainly felt finished. At that point, when I replied to a question from the doctor, my voice was gone. I was hoarse. And whispery. The voice I had was wiped clean. However, there is good news. Even though I have had pain in my throat and neck for the past few days, something I did not experience with the much quicker and more efficient procedure at the University of Utah Medical Center, I have not lost my voice entirely. I can still talk. Somewhat. Last April, after going to the UofU, I could not talk above a whisper for six weeks. So maybe this different approach, though it is much less "comfortable," will work fine for me. I have a follow-up appointment about the progress of my voice in eight days.
Close upon us is the Feast of Kurban Bayram . It begins next week. Government offices, schools, and the like will close, offering a vacation to a lot of people. At its center is a sheep (if you can afford it) or a goat (if you have to go cheap). Custom requires families to purchase one animal or the other, and to slaughter it for eating. In recent years, the government has shut down the open slaughtering of animals for health reasons, although people in the countryside still undertake this process, we have heard. Custom also demands that a person take one-third of the meat for herself/himself, one third for family members, and one third for poor people. Some have gotten around the last of these requirements by making donations to charities on-line. But others have generously made sure that eighty percent of the meat from an animal goes to poor persons. I would like to believe that I am one of this last group who gives most of it away, no matter the reason.
Some friends are coming with the Jerusalem student group which comes here rather than traveling to Egypt which is a bit dicey. At first, when it seemed that their hotel would be in a rather far city, we said that we weren’t going to meet them. Then they reported that the hotel arrangement had been changed to a city that we can reach by metro and bus. So we checked out the difficulty of us traveling there by taking the metro and bus, and learned where the hotel is located. It should be fun to see some students again. And our friends too, of course. But rain is predicted. And cooler temperatures. Maybe I won't go into the Aegean Sea after all.
I love you and pray for each of you.
Grandpa Brown
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