The "A" family relay service

A decade ago I had a friend who could not talk. She could hear but couldn't talk. Because of this she used a relay service when she wanted to call me on the phone. She would type out her message to the relay person who would read it to me. I'd answer the relay person who would speak the message to her. If she had been hearing-impaired, she would have typed the message to my friend.

Well, we had to invent almost such a service tonight in our family. I have virtually lost my voice and my mother has poor hearing. I can't speak loud enough for her to hear me. The solution? I whisper the message to one of my daughters and she shouts it out to Grama. Works fine!

I'm wondering how my voice is going to be in the morning when I start calling my students. I may have a day of calling students at their intervals and begging off in my hoarse whisper. I hope it's better though. Luckily my other job involves listening only. Good for me.

From Medicinenet.com:

What are the symptoms of laryngitis?

Hoarseness and loss of voice is the primary symptom of laryngitis.

If the cause of laryngitis is infectious, patients most often will also present with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection or cold. There may also be:

a dry cough,


sore throat,


fever,


swollen lymph nodes (lymph glands) in the neck,


perhaps pain with swallowing, and


a feeling of fullness in the throat or neck.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and yep.