Table 2. Experiential Themes—Representative Quotes From Semistructured Interviews.
| Themes | Subtheme | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Frustration | ||
| Communication | “The most frustrating part would be the not being able to communicate like I was normally able to do” (patient 17). “Everybody after a while gets a little impatient when you can’t even get your thoughts out or answer questions” (patient 9). |
|
| Employment | “I couldn’t do my job because I was on the phone a whole lot and people couldn’t understand what I was saying” (patient 19). “If I needed to make a call about something, business-wise, I couldn’t, because people couldn’t hear me at the other end” (patient 36). |
|
| Medical system | “I was just frustrated because why did it have to happen, because it was just so out of the blue, and nobody could figure it out” (patient 14). “It took other doctors months of sending me to all kinds of ‘ologists,’ and even they could not discern what it was” (patient 36). |
|
| Fear | ||
| Emergency | “My grandkids, if I have to holler out their names because I’m afraid that they’re going to do something that hurts them, then I can’t do that. I can’t holler. I can’t raise my voice. Plus, if something happened to me, if I was in danger, I can’t yell for help” (patient 8). “I worry I could be out and something happens, and I could holler for help and no one would hear me” (patient 11). |
|
| Health consequences | “I was afraid that some pieces was going into my lungs and give me pneumonia. That was probably one of the scariest thing” (patient 15). “What’s scary is the choking and the breathing” (patient 12). |
|
| Permanent/further damage | “The thing I feared most was that I would never get better” (patient 33). “I have just an ongoing fear of losing further control of my voice” (patient 23). |
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| Loss of control | “When I was drinking, I would have to think more…I was actually thinking about swallowing” (patient 17). “I just thought I was symptomatic from the surgery but it didn't clear up. So, it got quite scary” (patient 22). |
|
| Isolation | NA | “I don’t go out as much because I don’t want to be in a situation where someone’s trying to have a conversation with me and they can’t” (patient 6). “Now I stay home, I avoid the phone, I avoid situations where I need to talk” (patient 5). |
| Altered self-identity | NA | “This whole thing has just really taken apart my identity and given the pieces away, so I just don’t have them anymore” (patient 6). “It’s frustrating to me that something that was entirely not my fault at all could totally change my entire life, perception of myself…I can’t really do much of anything the same anymore because I either don’t sound the same, I can’t breathe the same, I don’t feel the same” (patient 6). |
Abbreviation: NA, not applicable.