It is with great excitement and joy to I announce the release of my new fabric collection with Banayan Batiks, “QUILTING IS MY VOICE” coming to Quilt Stores in January 2024. This collection of fabric and the corresponding patterns I have designed are all based on my journey with Spasmodic Dysphonia. My journey with spasmodic dysphonia (SD) has been a series of extreme highs and lows over the past five years. On June 11, 2017, I woke up and noticed my voice was tired and a little scratchy. Over the next two weeks my loud voice that easily carried across a room become a choppy whisper that could barely be heard by people standing right next to me. At first, I blamed it on overuse, not using it correctly, and maybe a little laryngitis. After a couple of weeks, I finally went and saw my doctor and got an antibiotic and some steroids and figured in a week all would be better. When that didn’t work, I ended up seeing an ENT and then being referred to a Laryngologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Dr. Christopher Bingcang. Over the following months we did a number of scopes, speech therapy, and started Botox Injections into the vocal cords (I have the best-looking vocal cords in the area, not a wrinkle to be seen!). While we were able to gain me some volume over time, the choppy-ness remained. In January of 2018, I got the official diagnosis of “Adductor Spasmodic Dysphonia” Once I had this diagnosis many thoughts started racing through my mind “How am I going to do my job working at the Local Quilt Store; Teach quilting classes; how am I going to do Quilt Guild Presentations; and how is this going to affect my life as a quilter in general. On October 18, 2018, I had the SLAD-R Surgery (Selective Laryngeal Adductor Denervation-Renervation) with Dr. Joel Blumin in Milwaukee, WI, to correct my SD. in layman’s terms: they decapitated me, severed the nerve on both sides of my neck that control speech and swallowing, hot-wired two new nerves up, and then put my head back on. This is a risky surgery in that there is no guarantee that the nerves will reconnect, and it has a lengthy recovery. This is only one of three surgical options available to correct SD, and of the three has the highest success rate (90%). My voice ?nally returned in May of 2019 and was 95% back to normal. In November 2020 though I heard the tell-tale crackle in my voice, and within a week, I had lost my voice again. At ?rst, we were hoping it was just some Muscle Tension Dysphonia. but after some speech therapy, voice rest, more scopes and the dreaded “rainbow reading”. it was decided that my SD had returned. Surgery is no longer an option, so I am back to doing quarterly Botox injections into the vocal cords that gain me a little reprieve. Through this journey, though, quilting has become my voice. It has helped me both face the disorder with a positive attitude and inner resolve to not give up or let it control my life. Thanks to the support of my local quilt community but also the larger quilting community. It has also given me the ability to be a spokesman and advocate for Dysphonia International and everyone living with spasmodic dysphonia. All the patterns in this collection have names that mean something to me and help tell my story.