vocal chord

In summer of 2007 I had my 3rd serious surgery (by serious I mean put out for a few hours).I had a huge tumor under my left ear. It has been growing there for over 10 years. These tumors can go as they come, I had one on the right side when I was a kid and it went away. The surgery took I think 8 hours. I was at the ICU for 2 days. Though the tumor was far from the vocal cord, my left vocal chord was hurt. Could be from the breathing tube, or maybe because the whole area was very very swollen. I lost a lot of blood.

Anyways, its hard to talk. It is very hard to produce a loud enough volume for loud bars, loud restaurants, etc. If a person sits by me they might be able to hear me, but it makes it hard to order things, you need to wave the server to come right next to you. If I'm sitting with friends say 4-6, there is music, and there are two conversations, even just one when everyone is really engaged, it will be hard for me to join in, I usually just listen (I do like to watch people). But still it can get very frustrating, especially since people around me tend to forget it's hard for me to talk when it gets too loud. And to those people I've mention this problem a few times. But you know, they want to go to the loud bars, so I just find other things to do.

Yet that's not the real problem, yes its annoying, but there are other limitations. Finding a job gets a lot harder. I now cannot work in loud places. An In-n-out can get pretty loud, being a cashier, which I used to be at another burger joint, is a problem because the customers won't hear me. Say I want to work at a summer camp, no can do. Cannot yell, cheer. Not loudly. It also makes it hard to sing. I think I'm quite an artistic person. I used to be able to do all kind of laughs. Just start them from nothing, I didn't need to hear a joke, or see something funny. I would crack my friends up. It like the paralysis wasn't enough, now this.