Word: doehler
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...sisters and I were so pleased with your article, "Lost Chords" [Aug. 31]. We have watched for many years Mrs. Mary Doehler overcome many problems with courage, intelligence and humor, and we have seen her continuing success in her esophageal speech training...
Besides her now-famous classes at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, every Wednesday night Mrs. Doehler drives to Providence, R.I. and holds another class. Every Saturday afternoon she drives to Manchester, N.H. for yet another session...
When cancer cost her her own vocal cords in 1944, Mrs. Doehler not only taught herself esophageal speech but set about perfecting methods of teaching others. She has written a standard handbook on the technique (it has just been translated into Japanese), and has taught no fewer than 1,300 laryngectomees herself, mostly at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary...
...Saxophone. Mrs. Doehler makes each patient practice swallowing air as many as 500 times before she asks him to make a sound. After that it is a four-step process to the first single syllable: open the mouth to let air in; close the mouth; swallow the air; and, finally, open the mouth and say "Bah!" Some determined patients progress from "Bah!" to full and clearly understandable sentences in two or three weeks. Others take many months. "The time varies," says Mary Doehler, "not only with the individual's determination but also with his family. If the family does...
Many a laryngectomee begins esophageal speech with cuss words, which have the advantage of being monosyllabic and explosive. Says Mrs. Doehler: "I often tell a man to say 'Damn!' It helps him to relax." One way or another, Mrs. Doehler and her dedicated colleagues have taught esophageal speech to about half of the estimated 20,000 U.S. laryngectomees...