Kicker: Regaining her voice

NICK EICHER, HOST: Lexi Bogan showed up last summer at Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, with persistent headaches and blurred vision. Turned out she had a brain tumor … and she needed treatment fast. Doctors were able to remove it and she’s doing okay, but Dr. Konstantina Svokos says …

DR. SVOKOS: From that surgery, due to the pressure on the cranial nerves that control vocal cord function and throat muscles and the tongue function, she had trouble speaking afterwards.

She still does.

LEXI BOGAN: When I go somewhere I would have to go … I have someone that can talk for me.

She’s saying she’d have to take a friend with her or her mom in case she encountered someone who couldn’t understand her.

But now her care team built an AI tool with a small sample of her voice pre-tumor. Lexi types, the phone speaks.

BOGAN: It feels amazing to get my voice back because it’s almost like a part of my identity was taken away when I lost my voice.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.