Tonight (8/19/08) on ABC’s series Medical Mysteries, airing at 10 pm EST in the US, I’ll be included for about ten seconds. The segment is about people who have my bizarre speech problem called spasmodic dysphonia.

With spasmodic dysphonia your voice functions differently in every speaking context. People who have this condition generally can’t order a pizza over the telephone but can speak perfectly to their cat. Ironically, the context in which I can speak best is while being interviewed about how I can’t speak. So depending on how they edit the piece, I might come off as a fraud with no problem at all.

A month ago I had surgery to try and correct the problem once and for all. I won’t know if it worked for 2-3 more months, after the nerves regenerate. I made a video of my pre-surgery voice so I would have a “before” version to compare to my post-surgery voice that I hoped would be normal. This exercise was wasted because as soon as the camera came on and I started talking about how I couldn’t talk, I could talk perfectly. There wasn’t a trace of a problem.

So you’ll have to take my word for it that when the camera crews left, I couldn’t talk well enough to pronounce my own name on the telephone. That’s literally true.

Anyway, check it out.