A PSYCHIATRIST has defied the odds and learnt to speak again after losing her voice to cancer.

Tanu Sarma's vocal chords were paralysed following an operation to remove a cancerous tumour on her thyroid gland.

She discovered she had papillary thyroid cancer in January 2016 and underwent an operation the following month to have the cancer removed.

Although the operation was successful in eliminating her cancer, she woke up unable to speak or swallow properly.

Concerned her son, now two, would never know her voice and that she would never be able to read her daughter, six, bedtime stories again, she decided to do vocal training.

Dr Sarma, 42, of Chelmsford, rebelled against the disease.

After spending hours exercising her vocal cords, within months she was able to whisper and finally she could speak as she had before.

Dr Sarma, who works in Colchester, said: “When it sunk in I was scared because they did not know if I would ever speak again. 

"My son would only eat if I sang to him, I felt like I wasn’t fulfilling a basic need for him. I also couldn’t read to my daughter any more. 

"That was the worst thing, thinking I would never speak to them again. I had recorded my voice for them in a talking book. I thought it would help them when I was away having my radioactive iodine treatment, I didn’t realise it might be the only way they would hear my voice. 

“But I didn’t give up. I had a very good speech therapist and I worked so hard. I spent hours every day doing my exercises. At first nothing came out at all, I tried to copy my therapist but there would be no noise. 

"But I kept doing the exercises and it worked - I did get my voice back!"

Later this month Tanu will be taking on an endurance challenge to raise money for Cancer Research UK and will be walking the Shine Night Walk, a marathon through London.