Anyone would be concerned if their voice mysteriously vanished for six weeks and counting. But there’s even more on the line when it happens to someone who speaks into a microphone for a living.
98.5 The Sports Hub morning host Fred Toucher lost his voice in February, and he’s still seeking answers on how to fix it. Earlier this week, Toucher spoke on-air about his lasting raspy voice after producer Mike Lockhart asked whether he was concerned that it might be an issue he has to deal with forever.
“Mike just freaked me out,” Toucher told co-host Rich Shertenlieb of their producer. “He goes, ‘Has anyone ever heard of anyone being sick for this long, are any of the doctors concerned?’ They didn’t seem overly concerned, they didn’t say come back tomorrow. They said come back in six weeks.”
The Boston sports radio host was sick earlier in the year and his voice was impeded, but he recovered after a few weeks. Now without his voice since the middle of February, Toucher admits he wonders about the impact it might have on his radio career.
“I mean, it has occurred to me. Is my career over if I continue to talk like this? But when your throat has been messed up for long enough, you learn to speak in a different way to compensate for it. What I’m hoping is these bacterial pills do something and that helps the most,” Toucher continued. “I had these lozenges before and the doctors were like ‘Why were you on those?’ Oh fantastic, I wasted all the time on the lozenges…I am no longer on steroids. My throat is infected, and all the stuff around it is puffy and cobblestones. It doesn’t hurt, not at all. And that’s why they’re not concerned. Because it doesn’t hurt.”
That’s great that Toucher is not in pain, but it has to be incredibly frustrating to watch doctors struggle to figure out the best mode of treating his voice issue. Toucher said he made his own decision to quit smoking, which seems like a step that can’t hurt in trying to get his voice back to normal.
Toucher and Rich are at the helm of a ratings monster in Boston. As long as Toucher is willing and able to keep talking, his radio career is going to continue. And the sports radio industry isn’t exactly filled with voices of angels; see Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, who has made a very successful career out of sounding like a cartoon. Currently, Toucher sounds kind of like Scott Ferrall with seasonal allergies.
Even though Toucher has the self-assurance of knowing he’s built up enough clout in the radio industry to garner as much time as he needs to get better, waking up without your voice and getting no answers from doctors has to be frustrating and frightening.
[98.5 The Sports Hub, Barrett Sports Media]
