Life Update

Attention World! Melissa is on the brink!
That could be bad or good. I'm thinking both. Let's start with the good!
I'm really excited about life. It's pretty mundane, and stuff sucks...but I'm excited for all the good things it has in store. A lot of crap has happened lately, but lots of other awesome stuff too: I've made some friends, I ate carne asada tacos and cookies, made a decadent meal for my man that I could be proud of, watched funny videos, listened to ethereal and heartbreaking music, drank chocolate milk, did 50 jumping jacks, cooked for FUN...and in so doing I discovered my culinary genius....etc.
Not too shabby.

Now that I've been sufficiently awesome...let's review what's seriously irking me.
I've already written about how I'm getting an incomplete in voice this semester. And that's the kind of the culmination of everything I think is wrong with me...or has been wrong with me/bothering me for the past four years or so. ...Alright...here we go...the long sad tale...

I never had allergies or even really got sick until I was 15. Mid sophomore year I get the worst sickness of my life. It hurt to sing, I was tired all the time, I couldn't breathe, everything in my face, throat and chest hurt. So...I find out it's a upper-respiratory/bronchial/sinus infection. I'd hardly heard of that crap before and there it was. So...yeah. gross. And basically...it didn't go away. It was like the sickness that stuck. It would wax and wane like the moon in fast forward.

So, I was having a lot of allergy-esque things...which I thought was weird...because I was always the girl not allergic to anything. So...Junior year...everything still sucked. My voice just hurt...I was getting more and more involved in private lessons, and choir after choir after choir...so this was an issue...a big one. I was deathly afraid my voice was sustaining serious damage and my mom thought we ought to go to the ear nose throat specialist. So...a while later we go to this apparently incredibly renowned and famous one in scottsdale or somewhere. There are tons of autographs in that office from famous singers he's worked with. Pretty cool.

Anyhoo...so...the appointment. They make me fill out a questionaire and check off a list of a billion different possible symptoms. I had about 2/3 of 'em. So what they told me is that I have all the symptoms of having allergies, but we'll have a look at your voice...so they did. Well, just the main doctor did. Hello laryngial mirror! I had to sing at him while he was looking down my throat. It was awkward...and I was especially awkward back then.
And basically what he tells me, is that my larynx is perfectly fine....so...That's good news....but that doesn't help me any!! So...since it seems like I have allergies, I have to come back and get tested for allergies. When I come back I meet with an allergist, they start out giving me the run-down on how they're gonna do the prick-test..and basically just brief me on that so I don't freak out....and right then and there we talk treatment options in the event of me having allergies (which I have all the symptoms of). So....if I have allergies I can either get allergy shots, or I can just take drops under my tongue and become immune. So...No problem. No more allergies. Tada!!

Onward...
So they get me semi naked. Poke my back with everything imaginable...and wait. Drum roll. please!
I'm allergic to............

NOTHING!


um....well that's good news....but once again that DOESN'T help me any!!! So...what is it then?
You're sensitive.
What?...
You have "sensitivities"
crap. what does that mean.

What that means, I've found, is that I'm allergic to a lot of things you can't control...I think they call it sensitivity because my reactions aren't immediately as violent as normal allergies...but trust me...they end up being much worse than itchy eyes and sneezing. I'd take that any day.

What I'm actually allergic to is:
Fragrances
Pollution

So I'm allergic to everything. I'm allergic to laundry detergent, dish soap, the smell of my boyfriend's hair, my mom's hand sanitizer, my sister's deoderant, the cat's litter, the fumes from the bus, the cigarette smoke on that random guy's clothes...so many things I cannot avoid. And I wish I could say that I would be fine if I never had to leave my house again, but I can't. My mom wants to burn that candle she loves so much (that actually just smells like cherry cough syrup), my sister uses that body spray from bath and body works....and on and on it goes.

Be warned, for now I will describe (in icky detail) why this sucks for my voice and why it ends up making me sick as a dog....no, not a healthy dog...I mean the really sick kind.
Okay...for starters...I get exposed to something that probably smells nice...but is actually poison to me. It irritates my sinuses somethin' fierce. I get stuffed, phlemgy, and all kinds of nasty bodily reactions drip down my throat irritating my voice. So...I get a horrid sinus infection, my vocal folds swell and my adduction goes to crap...as if that was any good to begin with.

So I ask them how I deal with that...what's the treatment, etc.
And here it is. Nosespray. Hooray!...not. :/
So I basically get to medicate myself ever two hours for the rest of my life. How wonderful! :/
The thing about that, though, is that I'm terrible at remembering to take medications...and on top of that, who has time to medicate so often? Um...no one.

Prevention doesn't work. It hasn't worked in the four-ish years I've been attempting it. So I get sinus infections in waves. Always. They wax and wane...and kind of never go away. I get fortnightly sinus infections. So I'm useless. I'm supposed to be this incredibly talented singer...but I've got this handicap. I fight and fight and fight and never win. I just think....What would I be able to do if I never had to have another sinus infection again? How unstoppable would I be...or at least feel?...
What if, what if, what if.....

As it is...I do alright...
If I'm careful, anyway...but it's been especially bad lately. My jury was supposed to be thursday. I wasn't terribly prepared for this jury anyway, because I haven't been able to practice like I should. Here are the choices: I can sing now...or I can perform later....so...I guess I'm not practicing today so I can sing in studio or wherever...but I need to practice.. Not just to improve, but because I'm a pretty kinesthetic learner. I need to get my muscle memory cooking...but when my teeny tiny vocal muscles are irritated and get tired in no time, I can't afford to. What can I do?

So on wednesday I wanted to just sing my pieces to myself and check myself on memory. I started out with Puccini's E'luccellino. It's short and sweet, an adorable lullaby. So I was fine on memory, but my voice sounded like crap...but oh well. So I moved on to Voi Che Sapete. And I didn't even get through the b section without my voice hurting too badly to continue. Well...that's not true. I didn't stop because of the pain. I stopped because I couldn't sing through the tears anymore. I couldn't believe it.

So many things went through my mind. Not necessarily helpful or good things, but valid things..things I've been thinking for the longest time.
Maybe I'm not meant to be a singer.
Maybe this is God's way of breaking that to me.
What else do I have going for me?
...nothing...
I was still crying when I texted Doan the news....Once I stopped crying I called him...He was genial and fatherly and awesome, but I'm just afraid that one of these days he's gonna get fed up with my voice being so freaking high-maintenance and give up on me.

In all honesty, I'm scared out of my mind.

I was 15 when I found my calling.....but maybe I just mis-read the memo. That seems to be the message my overly-sensitive body is telling me...or at least trying to force me to hear.

But then again, there's hearing loss in my family...so screw that!

Until further notice, I'll be fighting as hard and as long possible.


Wish me luck.