In Sickness and in Health: The real power of speech

Last year, Rebecca's husband Nick was hit by a car and seriously injured. Here, in one of a series of columns, she writes about the aftermath of his accident

Today, I'd like to talk about speaking. Or speak about talking. You see, when I recount things that Nick has said, to friends, to family, to readers, I have usually translated them from Nick into English. Sometimes Nick's speech is clear, sometimes it's incomprehensible to everyone except me or my stepmum (because she is a hero and visits him twice a week when I'm not with him). Sometimes even I'm flummoxed. His voice is growly and his words can come out slurred. No one seems to be sure whether the culprit was the tracheostomy, now just a silver line at the case of his throat, around which his chest hair has grown back and where toast crumbs gather, or the five months of disordered consciousness (for those not in the trade, think coma-with-eyes-open) in which his throat muscles were dormant and subsequently atrophied. Or a combination of the two.