And That's The Truth!

Monday morning, just as I was carrying my last "load" of stuff from Greater Vision's bus to my car...my cell phone rang. After I loaded up my car, I pulled out my cell phone to see who's call I had missed. It was a good friend in North Carolina, who promotes our music to Christian Radio stations across the country. When I returned the call, I heard a very concerned voice saying..."Are you okay? Tell me about your upcoming surgery." I responded, "tell me what you already know, and I'll just tell you what you don't know." The response was..."I got an email about your upcoming BRAIN SURGERY! Why didn't you tell me about it before now?!" About an hour later, I received a text from a friend in Nashville..."I heard about your Vocal Surgery...is everything okay?"

The truth is... I AM NOT HAVING BRAIN SURGERY or VOCAL SURGERY! I'm never surprised at how quickly stories can grow "larger than life", with just a few emails or phone calls.

So... here's what's really happening...and I'm glad you are interested enough to read about it. Your concern for my well-being is very much appreciated.

On Monday June 27, I will be having an out-patient surgical procedure called Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery. Thankfully, it won't involve any part of what little brain I have, and it doesn't have anything to do with my throat. There are informative videos available on YouTube, but I wouldn't suggest you watch them. They're quite graphic and gross.

The surgery is to correct some issues that have become very noticeable to me over the last eighteen months to two years. That was around the time I noticed I was having trouble "placing tones in my head". As a full-time singer, tone-placement is very important...especially the mid-range...where I sing most of the time. When I began to notice I was having trouble with my placements, I begin to use "alternative placements" to compensate. That worked for several months, but begin to lose its effectiveness over time. By the time Spring rolled around, this year, I had used up all the vocal "tricks" I knew, and I began to wear out, vocally, by the end of every concert. I could still sing the high endings, and the low baritone parts, but the mid-range notes were requiring me to push harder and harder. I began to fear that I was doing damage to my voice.

After we finished recording our new CD, I made an appointment with Dr. Dave Edwards, near Atlanta, for a routine Fiber-Optic Larynoscopy, to check my vocal cords. I was thrilled to learn that I my response to my issues hadn't caused any vocal damage! After the good news, came the bad news... Dr. Edwards said "since the problem is not in your throat, it must be in your head." He sent me for an immediate CT Scan, and we had the results in about an hour. When Dr. Edwards, and his wife, Mona, looked at the Scans, Mona looked at me and said "how are you breathing?". Of course, I had to make a joke by saying "in and out". After the laughter quickly died, she said "you're not getting any air through your sinuses...I'm surprised you've made it this long." Dr. Edwards then said it had taken several years for my sinuses to become completely blocked, and that my body had compensated for it for as long as it could. As we reviewed the Scans, I had no idea of what I was looking at, but Mona did a fantastic job of showing me how my sinuses had changed, and how persistent sinus infections had caused cysts to completely block my sinus cavities. They also pointed out that the bone that goes right up the center of my nose is crooked! They call it a "deviated septum".

The bottom line is this... The only way to correct these issues is through surgery. When I learned that, my response was "the sooner the better". So... on Monday June 27, I will go "under the knife", for my first-ever surgical procedure. I don't know how long the surgery will take, but I do know I'll have a recovery time of about three weeks. The first three days, I'll remain in the Atlanta area (for observation and follow-up), and then, I'll meet up with the guys in Bristol, TN on June 30. I'm not planning to miss any of Greater Vision's concert dates. Having said that, I will be under strict orders to "take it easy" for three weeks, so I have called in reinforcements to "cover" for me. Though I will be able to talk, Dr. Edwards has told me to "lay off the singing for three weeks", to help prevent bleeding. Talking doesn't "vibrate" the sinuses like singing does. So, I have a "stand-in" on "stand-by", for the singing...but not the emceeing.

So... there you have it. Nothing life-threatening (as far as I know), and nothing that should be "career-ending". I know several people who have undergone this same procedure, and have come through like champs. If I listed their names here, you would probably recognize some of them, and I certainly don't expect my procedure to have a different outcome than theirs.

Your prayers will certainly be appreciated on the morning of Monday June 27. If you're interested in keeping up with my progress during and after the procedure, you can get instant updates by "following" Greater Vision on Twitter by signing up at http://www.twitter.com/greatervision . My wife, Donna, will keep you "in the loop". There will also be updates on our Facebook pages.

I'm not worried or frightened about the upcoming surgery, or its outcome, because I really do believe what we sing, and the One we sing about. I believe God knows exactly where I am and what's going on, and that He saw this coming long before I did, and that it fits perfectly into His plan for my life. My responsibility is to follow Him, and leave the consequences to Him. He is faithful...and that's The Truth!