Creative Care Unit Episode 3: “My silence is my self-defense”
There
are very few things that make me nervous as a performer. I’ve performed for
audiences as small as 10 and as large as 6000. I thrive on getting in front of
folks to do what I do best. What really makes me nervous is when a medical
professional tells me that there’s a problem inside my throat, and that they’ll
need to go in there with sharp objects, working perilously close to the two
pieces of flesh I use to make a living, to remove it. I’m Michael E. Russo, and
we’ll be discussing my tonsillectomy-how I got to that point, the operation and
the aftermath-right here in the Creative Care Unit.
I grew
up in a small family on Long Island: my Dad, my Mom, me and my younger brother
named Andrew (I used to say little brother, but when puberty got done with the
both of us, my “little brother” wound up an inch taller, bearded and barrel
chested, whereas I look like I rent what little chest I’ve got). As is the case
with most families, I suppose, every one of us had an area of territory that we
covered. It wasn’t a conscious sort of thing; it just sort of naturally evolved
that way. Dad went to work Monday through Friday, Mom did stuff around the
house and took care of us when we got home from school, and my brother and I
did the things that interested us, what ever that happened to be.
We usually had dinner around 6 PM
or so, and each of us had our usual spots at the dinner table. Mom sat at the
spot nearest to the kitchen, I sat across from her, Andrew sat on my left at
one end of the table and Dad sat at the head, where he could not only see all
of us but he could also watch Jim Jensen and Walter Cronkite deliver the local
and network news each night.
There was a healthy amount of
conversation at the dinner table most nights. I don’t recall being told to be
quiet, unless there was a news story that Dad particularly wanted to hear.
Sometimes it got pretty lively. A friend of ours stayed over for dinner one
night, and he practically got a case of whiplash as he kept turning his head,
trying to see who said what when. My brother didn’t jump in as often as I did,
but when he did, it was deadly. Whereas my sense of humor tended to be on the
sloppy side, throwing anything against the wall to see if it would stick,
Andrew’s struck with surgical precision.
My favorite story about my
brother’s wit happened when we were in high school and I had a part time job as
a janitor’s assistant in a Lutheran elementary school. The tables in the
cafeteria were moved out of place and they needed to be put back the way they
were. Andrew was there to help me out. The assistant principal was talking to
us, explaining what had been done and what needed to be done. At the end of his
monologue, he asks us, “You know how I want the tables, don’t you?”, and my
brother looks at him and says, “Legs down?” I thought it was funny; the
assistant principal reacted by looking at me as if it was my fault. That was my
brother’s territory: being precisely funny.
Another piece of territory he
covered, though I’m sure he didn’t want to, was that he became my beta tester
for all things medical. He needed glasses in elementary school; I didn’t need
them until I was in my mid-twenties. He had his heart attack a decade before I
had mine, and when he was in kindergarten, he’d had his tonsils out.
I don’t remember much about that
time, other than he’d gotten pneumonia the Christmas before, and that I was
almost late for school the day he went to the hospital. I couldn’t tell you the
details of his operation or his recovery, but I’m sure that if he ever does a podcast
entitled “Here’s What REALLY Happened!”, he’ll tell you. I do remember that
there were no complications and that he seemed pretty normal once things healed
up. So, when I was told fourteen years later that I had to have my tonsils out,
I wasn’t really worried. After all, my brother had his removed when he was a
kid. How tough could it be?
I have
a confession to make: aside from my brother’s experience, everything I knew
about tonsillitis I’d learned from Bill Cosby. I used to memorize stand-up
comedy routines from records when I was a kid, and the two big faves in our
house were the Italian comedian Pat Cooper and Bill Cosby. We’d had copies of
Cos’ albums “Wonderfulness” and “Revenge”, and we heard them so much that I
could recite entire routines by memory, down to the vocal inflections he’d use
(this little talent of mine became a two-edged sword when I became a musician
and actor. I can learn songs and long passages of dialog if I hear them often
enough, but if I hear them too much, I start to sound like whoever happens to
be on the recording. This is why I prefer to work from the printed page, rather
than a recording. Leonard Zelig ain’t got nothin’ on me…). I had his routine “Tonsils” down cold, and if
copyright laws allowed it, I could recite the relevant portion here, especially
since it summarized my condition perfectly: my tonsils, which act as a filter
by trapping germs that could cause infections, got infected themselves (after
four strep throats and Bell’s Palsy over the last three semesters at Berklee,
that was no surprise) and were swollen. The best course of action was to have
them removed. We scheduled an operation for Valentine’s Day, 1985, and made
plans to get my problem tonsils out of my body.
And
with that, it’s time to give my voice a break. I think I’ll take a walk in the
night air. We’ll be back with the Creative Care Unit in just a moment.
Welcome
back to the Creative Care Unit. I’m Michael E. Russo.
February
13, 1985, the day before Valentine’s Day. I’m in my room in the Pediatrics
section of Winthrop Hospital, my operation scheduled for the next morning
(nowadays a tonsillectomy is done on an outpatient basis, but back then I spent
a few days there. I understand that recovery becomes more difficult the older
the patient is, and that a child will bounce back a lot quicker than someone
college age. I can’t imagine how long I’d have to stay if I that operation
today). I had x-rays taken and I was getting visits from the medical staff
asking me all kinds of questions. One in particular stood out, because I was
asked this more than once: do you smoke? No, I told them, that’s why I was in
the Pediatric wing (this was the section for non-smokers. Back in ’85, you were
allowed to smoke in hospitals. Not any more…). After having been asked this
more than once, I finally asked what was going on. They didn’t tell you? Tell
me what? We found a spot on your right lung on the x-ray, and we’re not sure if
we’re going to take your tonsils out or not.
Now,
when I get news like that, I don’t get depressed or sad. I get cheesed off.
Really mad. I wound up telling the doctors that yes indeed, we were going to
take them out. We’ll deal with whatever is on my lung later, but right now
those tonsils were coming out. Spoiler alert: after the operation I came back to
the hospital and had a CAT scan done. It turns out that the spot on my lung was
nothing but a calcium deposit. I’d totally forgotten about it until many years
later, when I was in a different hospital’s emergency room. I thought I was
having a heart attack, so I was brought straight in, and once again someone
told me they’d found a spot on my lung in an x-ray. I took in the information,
pointed to place on my chest where I remembered the deposit being and asked the
guy who told me this if this was the spot where it was. Yes, he said. It’s
calcium, I told him, and then I told him how I knew that. They asked if I still
had the films from back then. Are you kidding?
After
that minor hitch, the operation went off as scheduled. The drugs they gave me
to relax me before the operation were very effective, dropping my voice about a
fifth lower than normal, and I had no complications during or afterwards (let
me give a shout out to my surgeon, Anthony J Durante, who was and is the best
around. My Mom is also one of his patients). I spent a week at home
recuperating, generally resting and letting myself heal. The only thing that
was a disappointment, and this is because of the expectations I had from the
Bill Cosby routine, was that I got no ice cream to eat. Instead, I got
blueberry Tofutti that came from a little shop at the bottom of the hill from
where we lived. Now, I don’t know why I got no ice cream, nor do I know who put
the bright idea in my parent’s head that Tofutti was a preferable alternative
to ice cream. All I know is that I had blueberry Tofutti for the duration of my
recovery. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted OK, and it didn’t make me sick to eat
it, but for a guy who had visions of gallons of ice cream heading his way, it
was a disappointment. I’ve made up for that over the years, and the Tofutti
place is now a Thai restaurant, so I guess things eventually evened out.
Speaking
of recovery, it went well. There were no post-surgery complications (unless you
consider the CAT scan I had on my lung a post-surgery complication), and I
healed up quite nicely and quickly. Most of that was due to the excellent care
that I received, but part of it was due to my attitude. I was cast in a musical
written by my former high school English teacher and drama coach, and I did not
want to miss out on being in this. I’d also heard that a mezzo soprano friend
of mine from Boston Conservatory had also undergone a tonsillectomy before I
did, and that it took her six weeks to get back to singing. The competitor in me
rose to the occasion. Ah ha, thought I, I’ll do it in three. Sure enough, I was
back on the boards in three weeks, singing in a musical and singing HARD. It’s
nice when you can will your twenty-three-year-old body into normality sooner
rather than later. I fully expected to be back in three weeks, and that’s what
happened.
What I
did NOT expect were the changes to my instrument. Without the tonsils back
there to fill the space, singing felt…different. Breathing felt different. My
sound was different. Worse, I lost my voice, something that never, EVER
happened to me before. I didn’t lose it during the show, thank God, and I’ve
never missed a gig because of laryngitis, which I’m quite proud of, but I had
to learn how to fill the space in the back of my throat differently, how to
baby the voice so that I wouldn’t lose it, and that was something that would
take me a lot longer than three weeks to figure out.
Thirty-three
years later, I know a lot more about how to properly use my instrument. I do
things that keep my voice flexible and avoid things that could potentially
damage it, either in the short or long term. I haven’t lost my voice in
decades, and I know how to manipulate it to produce dark sounds like this, and
brighter sounds like this. But for all of the pampering and babying I give my
voice, I cannot prevent ageing from changing the instrument, and it has. This
happens to everyone, regardless of their profession, and we’ll talk about that
another time.
Uh-oh!
Time to act like an announcer. Roll the credits!
Support for this podcast is made
possible by my long-suffering Wife (who lets me do this), copious amounts of
caffeinated beverages and listeners like yourselves. If you’ve enjoyed this
program, please like our Facebook page, which has links to our transcripts of
the show blog and links for you to make a donation to keep this show
going.
Creative Care Unit is recorded in
The Danger Room Studios of Glimmer Productions, located in the heart of beautiful
Bucks County, PA. I’m Michael E. Russo. We’ll see you next time, and until
then, stay well.
