School’s generosity helps restore voice

CASCADE, Mont. – After struggling for more than three years with his speech hushed to a whisper, Cascade art teacher Stormy Schwindt can thank his school and community – loud and clear.

And he’s doing just that. He thanks them again and again for their pennies, their prayers and their all-around support in his quest for medical treatment for vitiligo, an autoimmune disorder that drains the pigment from his skin and eyes, and ankylosing spondylitis, which turns cartilage to bone.

He thanked students and staff at the school last Friday during a surprise assembly to welcome him home from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“It was a life-changing experience. People were cheering for me, a teacher,” Schwindt said.

A Mayo speech specialist restored Schwindt’s voice. His other ailments can’t be helped, he said.

Schwindt traveled to the clinic Nov. 11, not knowing what, if anything, the doctors would be able to do for him.

When he met Dr. Karyn Kryon Jones, an ear, nose and throat specialist, she told him she could help him and she grabbed him by the throat to do it. The cartilage in his larynx, commonly called the voicebox, had calcified and hardened so it no longer functioned.

“From the outside, she pulled my larynx apart and manipulated it to where it was supposed to be,” he said. If it sounds brutally painful, it was. No sedatives could be administered, he said. “It’s still sore.”

He’s not likely to lose his voice again, he added. “It turns out that all the whispering was bad for it. No more whispering for me,” he said.

“Getting my voice back has revitalized me,” he said.

Cascade School is revitalized too, according to Principal Dave Malloy. The “penny war” fundraiser to help pay Schwindt’s medical bills, which Malloy spearheaded, exceeded its $2,000 goal and raised $3,895.77, more than $11 for every student in the school.

“The kids feel good about themselves for giving to someone else,” Malloy said.

In return, Schwindt pledges to give his students at Cascade an education in the arts that’s as good as they can get anywhere in America.

Though his voice has returned, ankylosing spondylitis continues to rack the rest of his body. All he can do is manage the pain, he said.