The Sound of Silence, part two

What the doctors hadn't told me was that if I simply put my finger over the cannula (the tube that was inserted in the trach that was inserted in the hole in my neck), I would be able to speak. I had no idea. I think they didn't want me talking in the beginning because they were concerned about how it might affect my breathing. So I lay there as mute as a monk for days. The more awake and aware I became, the more my inability to communicate exacerbated my depression. It didn't help that none of the doctors or nurses were particularly adept at reading lips. "I'm hungry," I'd mouth. They'd repeat: "You're ugly?" "I'm hungry!" "You're angry?" And so it went until I was ready to throw a chair at them, had I had the strength. I eventually figured out how to use the text feature on my phone to bitch about stuff, but that was later. When they thought that my breathing was improving, they promised me a Passy-Muir valve (see picture above). It fits onto the aforementioned cannula and allows the patient to talk. The mechanism reminded me of a kazoo; there was a thin membrane that vibrated when you spoke and volia...sound! So I kvetched and kvetched and finally got the damn thing and unleashed a veritable torrent of (very impressive, I might add) vernacular and verbiage. It didn't need to make sense; "Embargo!" I'd cry, apropos of nothing. "Liederhosen!" "Cumquat!" Then I figured I better shut up before they sent the shrinks back in.