Last Sunday, January 18, at the end of the 9:00 worship experience, I felt something strange happen in my vocal cords and immediately had no singing voice and very little ability to talk. David did an amazing job stepping in as worship leader for the 11:00 worship (Which many of you probably thought was planned). I spent the hour behind the curtain praying and knowing something was very wrong.
First thing Monday morning I went to have pictures and video taken of my vocal cords and we discovered a hemorrhage on my left vocal cord. In short, this means a blood vessel burst and is bleeding beneath the tissue of the vocal cord. This is a serious vocal cord injury but treatable with time, patience, and resolve.
For the next 10 days I am on complete vocal rest which means absolutely no talking, coughing, or clearing my throat. After that I will have more pictures taken and we will make a plan for beginning to use my voice again. The doctor has estimated a 4-6 week recovery period. We do not know why this happened. There are many theories and suggestions but none fit my situation very well. I was not doing anything out of the ordinary, so it leaves us all quite confused.
As you can imagine, I am experiencing a very wide range of emotion. Everyone needs a way to communicate and not having that in my daily life is tough, especially on my children. As a singer, I am feeling a bit lost and lonely without my instrument. The silence is sometimes deafening even when I’m around people and noise.
Worship at gathering will not change much. David and our wonderful band will continue to worship with you. We will invite our friend Sarah Scharbrough back to worship with us. Joshua and I will continue to put as much care and thought into designing the worship experience as we always do, I will just not be able to play the same role for a few weeks.
I will keep you posted on this blog if there is any new information. For now, I would appreciate your prayers for a quick recovery and the grace to get through the necessary process.
Oh yes, and there is one more thing you can do for me in worship….sing extra loud, OK?
