Learning to communicate

Initially my way to communicate was through facial expressions. Flicking of my eyes, to raising my eyebrows to say yes or no. I was asked to “give me a smile” once I got my facial muscles back. It could be because I was ventilated and trached that when I finally was fully conscious, there was no voice when I talked.

They brought in a Speech Pathologist to help. They gave us an alphabet box and we would play hangman game, “first word, first letter “, to communicate. It was frustrating because it took time to figure out what I wanted to say. As my neck muscles were coming back, I was able to start moving my head side to side and up and down. Having that movement the Speech Pathologist decided to try a computer program in which I could type out what I wanted to say by moving the cursor by moving my head. The cursor was really sensitive which became frustrating trying to get the cursor where I wanted. Plus with my weak neck muscles, the whole process left me tired after a few minutes. After a few days we abandoned using the computer program for communication. 

For the many months ahead, I communicated using the alphabet box and lip reading. Even though it brought its own frustrations, between my mom and friends we found a method to make it work to have a conversation. We cheered when we got the word/phrase right and sometimes we had to ask for help from nursing staff or another friend in the room to interpret my lip reading. It gave us times for laughter and encouragement when we succeeded.