i went to a seminar today on tracheoesophageal voice restoration. it's a procedure that's done for people who have had their larynx ("voicebox") removed because of cancer and can no longer produce a voice. i won't go into the details, but the result of the procedure is that the person can speak by vibrating the top of the esophagus rather than the vocal folds which have been removed along with the larynx.
the seminar was FASCINATING and it kept me awake even though i had gotten up really early for it. it was conducted by one of the pioneers of the procedure, eric blom, and he is wickedly cool! other highlights included free breakfast (i had a huge cheese danish and a chocolate croissant, and later another cheese danish "to go"), a blom-singer pen and a snazzy certificate.
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the voice prosthesis looks like a hollow spindle attached to a plastic tongue depressor. how does it work?
you looked it up? you are a supernerd.
the prosthesis is a one-way valve inserted into a surgically created puncture between your trachea and esophagus. it shunts air from the lungs into the esophagus but doesn't allow food or drink to go the other way.
the tongue depressor is just there to assist in removal of the prosthesis (for cleaning, replacement, etc.).
googling by copy/paste is not a chore at all.
so it's an internal tracheotomy... i probably should have divined that from the name of the process. do they sound like darth vader =D ?
the title is decieving. I thought we were meeting Mr Sharon Wong.
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