A Bittersweet Ending

My last speech therapy session was today. Thankfully, in recent weeks, my insurance finally came through and began paying for all the treatment I have received. The decision to end treatment is a combination of my therapist’s decision and the unlikely prospect of continued coverage.

When I began this process (see my original post for how all this started), my hope was today would be a celebration of a return to my original speech fluency. Instead, it is a bittersweet ending. Since starting speech therapy, I have made great strides in four months. My reading aloud rate is now in the normal range, and the incidents of sound and letter repetition in my conversational speech are way down. But, I do sound different than before, and there is more work to be done.

There is still hope that things will go back to normal. The plan now is for me to continue to do the voice and speech exercises I have learned during speech therapy on my own, similar to how someone in physical therapy would continue to do exercises after therapy is finished. My therapist believes time and continued personal work will bring my speech back to where it once was. She is also providing another possible medical treatment to my doctor, as an option, if there is not continued improvement. I will be speaking with the therapist monthly so she can hear my progress, and she and my doctor want me to see another neurologist for a 2nd opinion as a precaution.

A few weeks ago, I was a counselor at a free sports camp for elementary children that our church organizes. I worked with twelve third graders who were learning soccer. I had become so comfortable with my speech impediment that I thought it would be unnecessary to talk to the kids about it. Obviously, I do not work with elementary-age children often. The first day they imitated my stutter and asked questions like “why do you do that?” or “why do you repeat letters?’ Trying not to make a big deal about it, I explained quickly I had a medical problem.

Another day, the kids brought up my speech again during our small group Bible time. One of the third graders asked, “Is it OK with God that you talk that way?” I asked them if any of them had ever been sick before, and then let them tell me about their individual illnesses. Then, I told them again that my speech problem was a result of illness, and that I am in therapy to improve it. I continued to say that I knew that God loved to hear me speak, stutter and all, because he loves me just the way I am. Our camp’s lesson that day was partially about how God uses the Bible to let us know how much he loves us. I have learned a lot this year about how sometimes the teacher has to be the lesson.

Even though I am not always thrilled with the way I sound right now, I do believe that God loves the sound of my voice, just as He loves everything else about me. It is almost incomprehensible to grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” And, I believe that every time I speak, it is a win for Christ, because He created me to be a communicator through the written and spoken word. And, I almost allowed the evil of this world take part of that away from me.

I just finished reading a book called “Surrender to Love” by David Benner. In the book, Benner encourages us to surrender to God’s perfect love so that we can be free to become who He created us to be. Benner writes, “God is head-over-heals in love with you. God is simply giddy about you. He just can’t help loving you. And he loves you deeply, recklessly, and extravagantly – just as you are.” What an awesome picture of how God feels about us. I fully believe that.

Jon Foreman, the lead singer of Switchfoot and one of my favorites, wrote the below paragraph on his blog, and I feel like it sums up my recent experiences that I have been sharing here.

“…it seems to me that inconvenience, hardship and discomfort are my best teachers. It's as though these horrible, wonderful moments where I realize my own limitations are almost exclusively the only ones that matter. So when I'm brave enough, I chase these awkward moments down. I write songs about them. I put my scattered thoughts online. Heck, I even seek therapy from time to time. Love, dreams, confessions, God, women -- these are dreadful, awe-inspiring mysteries to me. They put a funny taste in my mouth. They give me scrapes and scars. And stories. The best stories often come from inconvenient and uncomfortable places.”

Thanks for sharing in my story here. Publically writing my scattered thoughts about this experience has been part of the healing process for me. And, I will celebrate the successes I have had in this speech situation by doing some things that I love: the midnight showing of the last Harry Potter movie and tomorrow a day at California Adventure, a Disney theme park.