‘I love you, Mom’: How surgeons helped a young girl find her voice

Delayza Diaz didn’t use her voice for the first time until she was 9 years old.

Delayza Diaz didn’t use her voice for the first time until she was 9 years old. For most of her life, she has communicated by vibrating the inner lining of her cheeks to form words, a process called buccal speech. Her mom, Lucero Diaz, called it her squeaky voice. “You had to pay really, really close attention to her to see what she was saying,” said Diaz, 34, who lives with her daughter in Salem, Oregon. Only family members could understand Delayza well. “She had a tablet that she speaks for her, but she doesn’t like to use it because she says that she has her own voice that she can use,” Diaz said. Delayza has a rare condition that causes a collection of birth defects that can affect the spine, upper airway and esophagus. Doctors estimate that it happens in 1 infant for every 10,000 to 40,000 who are born.