Duane hasn’t spoken in four days.  

His voice is gone.  

I can read his lips – mostly – but it’s hard.  If I get a work wrong he rolls his eyes and if I get it wrong again he shakes his head and huffs, like I’m doing it on purpose.  

We have speech machine.  We got it about a year and a half ago, it works with eye gazing technology.  He never learned to use it.  He’s tried a few times over the last year but gets mad and quits.  He asked me to pull it out the other day because he needs it.  It’s hard to use, it takes time to learn it, it’s tiring and it’s new.  He tried to kick it over two times yesterday… He would rather be mad at me for not being able to read his lips than take any sort of responsibility for not learning it.  

– xoxo Victoria