Gregg Merksamer

LeeAnn Cunningham

LeeAnn Cunningham

PCS Member
As most of you know for the past year or so Gregg has been having trouble with his voice and doctors were having a difficult time diagnosing him. Well he now has an official diagnosis and will be having surgery in the next week or so at Phelps Hospital's Institute For Voice & Swallowing Disorders in Tarrytown, NY.

Below, in bold, is Gregg's e-mail describing his condition and the treatment. Let's all keep Gregg in our thoughts, and soon we'll have the 'old' Gregg back!


On a technical level, my official diagnosis is Muscle Tension Dyphonia that's induced paresis in my left vocal chord. What caused it is anyone's guess, but a virus seems the most likely culprit; my voice loss happened over the course of just a day, while I was up in Boston attending the funeral of my best friend's mother.

They'll put me under and inject the shriveled chord with a synthetic material that will hopefully restore its original shape and more normal voice volume, at least on a temporary basis of 1-2 months. If this works, my vocal chord will be injected with more permanent implant material at a later date. This procedure was attempted with local anesthesia in mid-September, but my doctor had to extract the needle without injecting as I was unable to avoid coughing, swallowing and gagging as he closed in the vocal chords. We didn't want it to damage anything else in that area, to say the least!
 
Gregg

I hope everything goes well and you recover quickly.

I had a small surgery today and Im waiting for an MRI coming in November regarding back problems. Its no fun when somethings wrong.

You don't really know how lucky you are until you have something thats not right or normal.

Thanks for all you do for the PCS !

Take it easy and good luck.
Darren
 
Best of luck, Gregg. A family friend in lower Connecticut had a similar procedure recently and she is fine now. Perhaps she had the same doctors as you!
 
Good luck from this side of the pond. Hope all goes well and look forward to hearing you at full volume again.
 
Whether or not tomorrow's injection actually restores my voice and cues the MD he's clear to use a more permanent conconction at a later date, I'm certainly grateful for all the messages of encouragement and support received through the PCS message board and one-on-one e-mail.

I've long believed one of the big reasons the PCS feels so much like real family is that we've got so many members hailing from the intrinsically caring EMS and funeral fields. While I'm quite keen, after 17 months, to have my old voice back or something closer to it, I realize I'm how lucky I am this isn't something life-threatening. Others in PCS have not been as fortunate in this respect, and I find myself thinking of those folks a lot as the Hour of Anesthesia approaches.
 
Sorry that I'm just now getting to post and wish you well wishes in your recovery! I'm glad to hear that what has been do so far has been of help to you! Keep us updated and well be thinking about you Gregg!
 
Has anyone heard from Gregg? It was a week yesterday since the surgery. I haven't tried to call, because I didn't know if he's able to talk or not. I e-mailed him last night, haven't heard back yet. If anyone knows anything let us know. Thanks!
 
Update From Gregg

Here is an update I received from Gregg today.

I had a followup last Tuesday with MD who injected my left vocal chord with radiesse to restore its original shape.
Thankfully, stroboscopy shows that it now appears to open and close properly, but my voice quality remains highly variable from day-to-day.
After 17 months mis-using the surrounding muscles to compensate for my malfunctioning chords, I'll need several weeks of speech therapy to restore more normal volume and endurance to my voice.
 
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