Now, can you all please be quiet! First words as man gets voice back
A GREAT- grandfather who regained his voice after two years of being unable to speak stunned his family by saying: “Brilliant. Now can you all be quiet, please.”
Widower James Sykes, 81, had been silenced by a virus which paralysed his vocal cords.
But after undergoing a revolutionary 10- minute procedure he found his voice. His relatives were so excited that James, despite being able to speak, was unable to get a word in edgeways until he made his demand for quiet.
James, from Barnsley, said: “I lost my voice gradually over a couple of years until eventually I couldn’t speak at all.
“I live on my own and after I lost my voice I stopped going out.
“I used to like going for a pint and had plenty of friends to chat with, WHEN new- born donkey Hope was rejected by her mother, farmer Jane Nelson stepped in to hand- rear her with a baby’s bottle – and now the foal is convinced Jane is her real mum.
The miniature Mediterranean donkey, who is no bigger than a dog, follows Jane around the farm she runs in Carlisle. Jane, but I couldn’t speak, so what’s the point? It was a lonely time.”
Then his daughter Pat, 59, heard about surgeon Declan Costello, known as the Voice Doctor in the music industry, and they visited him at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. James, who has eight grandchildren and six great- grandchildren, had the treatment last June and was warned not to attempt to speak for two days. He said: “After those two days, I tried speaking and I was right as rain. The first word I spoke was ‘ brilliant’ because I knew this would be life- changing. Then I said to my family, ‘ Now I can tell you to be quiet’.” His procedure is known as a “voice lift”, in which filler material is injected into the tissue to reduce weakness. 49, said: “It’s like having another child. She comes in the house to skip about or be cheeky. She puts her ears back and runs straight into your bottom.”
Month- old Hope, one of 400 of her breed in Britain, will be the size of a Shetland pony when she is fully grown... but that’s still donkey’s years away.