Skeeter Kiper went to his speech pathologist, Dr. Shelly Dold, to get an utterly unpronounceable diagnosis: apraxia of speech with dysarthria and phonemic paraphasia. Dr. Dold explained this diagnosis as a neurological condition in which Kiper’s brain has difficulty organizing the muscle movements needed for speech, resulting in slurred communication. He also presented with speech that adds or subtracts phenomes from words, like saying “Quacktastic” instead of “Fantastic” or “Uh-oh PasghettiOs” instead of “Uh-oh SpaghettiOs.”
“If I cannot say these words,” Kiper told the Squeaky Wheel, “how will I ever say whatever she just told me my diagnosis is called?”
According to Kiper, his life of late had been a prolonged test of tongue-twisters, which made him all too aware of his new disability.
For instance, earlier that year, Kiper had suffered a traumatic brain injury (the reason for his speech impairment) following a bike collision with an outdoor dance troupe. The troupe had been in a laughing fit so intense they had not noticed they had moved into his path of travel. He tried to avoid them but rammed directly into the group. After hitting one dancer, Kiper flew from his bicycle and hit his head on the pavement. The other dancers jumped in alarm and fled the scene, trampling on him as they did so. The local newspaper covered the story with the tongue-twister headline, “Skeeter Kiper Nicked a Pack of Tickled Steppers.”
After an extended hospital stay, Kiper was connected to outpatient speech therapy with Dr. Dold, who opened her practice two years ago alongside a winter sports shop in a popular outlet mall. She was well respected and widely known for her advertising slogan, “Shelly Dold Speech Help by the Ski Store.”
Not another one!
Translating his new diagnosis into layman’s terms, Dr. Dold told Kiper his speech would be a bit “scuzzy” and “muzzy” and that they would work together on developing communication strength. She asked him what times would work best for recurring sessions, wanting to be respectful of Kiper’s other social engagements. He told her, “Scuzzy Muzzy doesn’t care, Scuzzy Muzzy is a square.” Scuzzy Muzzy wasn’t very fussy, was he?
As a first test for therapy, Dold asked Kiper to pronounce the diagnosis she had just given him. He knew this was impossible and looked at her in silence.
“Could you?” she asked. He said nothing. “Could you?” she prodded a second time. Still, nothing. “Well, do you think you could?” By then, he hated the question and wanted to throw it out the window.
Finally, he told her, “How much coulds would a good schmuck huck if a good schmuck could huck coulds?”
By her observation, he would do just fine in speech therapy, although she agrees it’s absurd to give complex clinical language to her patients knowing darned well they won’t be able to say them.