I listen to NPR almost every morning on the way to work, and occasionally if I’m running late I hear the The Diane Rehm Show. It’s also common to hear her telling about the upcoming show during Morning Edition.

If you’ve heard her voice, you’ll understand my thinking here, but I thought she was at least 85, and I wondered why she wasn’t retired. I also had a sneaking suspicion that all of her vacations (she seems to have an awful lot of them) were due to health issues. If you haven’t heard her on the radio, her voice sounds frail and wavering, and she speaks rather slowly. In short, she sounds like a grandmother.

I found out from Mckay that she is not old, but suffers from a disease that makes her voice sound that way. I did some research and confirmed those claims. I also found out that her last name is not Ream like I orginally thought, nor is it Reem. I was hoping Google would correct my spelling when I searched for the other spelling but so many people have misspelled it that Google considers it a valid spelling.

Anyway, back to the issue of her voice. On her about page it explains that she suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition that causes strained, difficult speech. After she overcame the disorder and wrote about it, Ted Koppel had an interview with her on Nightline (the original link provided on the about page is no longer valid, so this is a link to archive.org).

So there you have it, from amidst the tangled web, I’m Dan Hersam.