I woke up Monday morning and discovered I couldn’t talk. While this was surely a great relief to my coworkers, I became concerned, given that talking to people on the radio is essentially my only skill.

My voice started getting just a bit raspy on Sunday. Scaiaholics are often surprised to learn that I test introvert and find “talking to people” one of the most exhausting parts of my job as a reporter who talks to people for a living.

So Sunday is my day of rest from talking to people. I call home on Sundays, where the discussion usually leads to Mama Scaia reassuringly explaining that being difficult work with just proves I wasn’t adopted. I got through that Sunday evening, but by Monday morning, I was done for. I could barely grunt.

“Maybe I’ll feel better if I drink tea,” I thought to myself. I went back to the coffee maker and brewed tea after tea, but that didn’t help.

At one point, I stood up to raspily grunt a story to my coworkers, who, in a very reassuring manner, yelled at me to shut up. It was a good story, though!

Another co-worker, Kelli, comes in a bit later. I had been drinking tea after tea, making trip after trip to the men’s room, and she came to my desk with a doctor’s information. She said he helped her when she got laryngitis a couple years ago. She said he also treated Celine Dion, and his office would schedule me for an appointment as soon as possible if I told them I was a reporter.

I called to schedule an appointment, struggling to put a full sentence together, which elicited sympathy from the people behind me.

“Aww, he’s trying to make a doctor’s appointment!” I heard one of my co-workers exclaim.

The doctor was quick and to the point, which, given my disdain for talking to people, I found delightful. He poked around in my throat, said he didn’t find anything to suggest the laryngitis would stick around more than a week, but since I’d need my voice back quicker, he’d prescribe a course of steroids, which provide faster response.

I was concerned about the potential effects of steroids, but he explained I’d only take them for three days, and if I got the prescription filled at the pharmacy on the bottom floor of his building, I could take my first dose immediately and would see improvements for my next shift in the morning.

This morning, I was all excited to walk into that newsroom and belt out some Celine Dion [assuming she had a hit with CW McCall or Jerry Reed], but I was still raspy. I went directly to the coffee maker and started brewin’ the tea again.

“Maybe he said, ‘tomorrow,’ like, ‘tomorrow afternoon,'” one of my co-workers said, reassuringly.

“You sound a lot better than you did yesterday,” another said, also reassuringly.

My voice improved through the day, and the doctor was solid about what was happening and what to expect. It’s possible I wasn’t the first patient ever to have unreasonable expectations. Are ya with me, medical community?!

Meanwhile, I increasingly feel like the people around me constantly feel pressured to say something reassuring. Maybe I have become Ron Burgundy.