It all comes to FaceTime conversations with my parents.
I’m so happy and so glad that we could see each other as well as converse with each other. FaceTime has been a godsend.
In addition, Dad and I love to order and drink special coffees from Starbucks (right now, there’s a competitor for Starbucks – my wife has her own Nespresso machine, and I’m quite an expert there).
Back to Starbucks, we males love to drink coffee there. However, as one knows, coffee, lattes, and all other caffeinated (or even decaffeinated) drinks have been shown to be a major cause for acid reflux. What caffeine does is cause one’s stomach secrete extra gastric acid up through one’s esophagus. Even vocal cords can be affected.
My dad is in his late eighties, and as one would expect, he’s bound to have minor health problems such as acid reflux. This has often caused Dad to lose his voice during any conversation after a lengthy period of time, prematurely ending such a conversation. As a result, his doctor has told him to cut down on coffee.
Even though Dad has drank much less coffee, he still loses his voice.
Of course, one could expect that during our FaceTime conversation, he’d lose his voice. Sometimes, I’d say to him, “You can continue to move your lips without even using your voice, Dad. That way, we can continue our discussion.”
If a conversation without any voice were to happen between d/Deaf people (especially those who happen to be oral), moving lips would be no problem for them because they already would be veteran lip readers. But with Dad, he’s so used to speaking with his voice after more than 80 years. He has admitted to me that he’d rather put the conversation on hold so that his vocal cords could rest.
One can’t win them all.