When we speak

For how many comments I get on how can I get up everyday smiling and living life truly, it's simple: I rather be living voiceless than dying to a combination of a viral infection and bronchitis.
Yes, I did say voiceless, as in mute. In my terms, I can speak to a point until the air in my lungs turns to breathy, horse wheezes that you have to strain your ears to hear. Expect all my doctors through the nine and half years have told me- including my speech/vocal coach therapist- that to speak at a normal young adult level it would rendered my ability to breath. To bad for them since it happened before.
People ask me all the time if I had a trachea tube in the middle of my throat, and I had until I turned fourteen. I remember my mother having to clean the surrounding area of where it had been placed. I know what you're thinking, red skin, maybe some puss from an infection, a giant muscly hole that a lot of smoker's get when they get cancer. There was only the red skin under a white cloth to help keep the device from rubbing against my skin. The reason I got the tube installed is because in fifth grade in the middle of November I had the worst asthma- not even an asthma attack- attack that caused me to fall on the floor and have compulsions from lack of air. All the doctors told both my mother that I had been lucky to survive a seizure like compulsion. And for a ten year old, that is some pretty scary shit I kid you not. Thankfully I was able to have my throat get better at breathing from a specialized throat doctor, who had to perform a surgery where they had to make sure my vocal cords could move properly. I didn't really understand the whole thing when I was ten and when my mother told me, three and half years later I finally understood it and wrote almost a whole book on how I finally understood what the doctors had meant.

All the surgeries I had made me stay in the hospital for a majority of my elementary years, meaning when I finally got in middle school, I barely knew anyone. I was still very new to the environment, the only mute boy in the sixth grade, embarrassed by teachers when they asked questions I could answer, yet could not. I had no way to speak and communicating by paper began to become a hassle, then all of sudden my mother got my sign language lessons by a teacher from a school for the deaf and blind, all the way from New York City. It's not I lived far from NYC, but the teacher was like the Miracle Work- and I mean she was the best out there in the whole city of Manhattan. All throughout sixth and half of seventh grade, I learned more than a beginner from an early age of life. She had never been more impressed by any one of her students, and from a New Jerseyboy, I really impressed her. By the time seventh grade over, I literally taught my homeroom and homeroom teacher sign language, not to mention held got an award for most inspirational student.

During my first year of high school, I met to unlikely people who began my best friends, Ray Toro- aka Princess FroFro- and Bob Bryar- aka the person who hates getting picture taken or video of him others known as person who hates video cameras. Can't get a god damn video of him playing drums. Threw a drum stick at me once, nearly threw it back. Nearly. Now, let me tell you something about them, they are my translators, yet they sleep in a majority of the classes we have. Meaning I have to hit them to wake up so they can speak for me, otherwise my teachers know even sign language to understand what I say. But, they are the best friends and possibly only best friends I ever had. We also have little band sessions in my basements. I play rhythm guitar, Ray plays lead and Bob plays drums. The only two parts we are missing: a bass and a singer. Sadly, we have not found those, but are still looking even in our junior year, and sadly nothing has happened at all. We found no one, plus putting flyers does not help in our school. They rip them down anyway.

But, there was something about this year that would change, and it all started when I came home from school and my mother telling me news that would turn my world and life around forever.

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