A silent morning with George

Imagine that you awake from a deep sleep one morning and try to say "Good morning", but your words come out slurred instead of even and distinct. Naturally, you panic and head for the doctor, but check-ups reveal no kind of trauma to your throat or your voice box, neither is there any outward cold or flu-like symptoms you can put your finger on. Your tongue is normal. You don’t remember eating or drinking anything out of the ordinary. You don’t recall shouting. Yet you cannot speak.

This is what George Morgan has been going through each day for the past four years. Now 67, he has yet to find out a medical reason for his four years of forced silence. When I went to visit him at his home in Maraval, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Most journalists are armed with a notebook, pen and tape recorder, but as I put the tools of my trade on the table I knew I wouldn’t be using them in the usual fashion. As he came into the living room and motioned for me to follow him to the back yard, he smiled and gave me a ‘bounce’; it was just a peek into his humorous side, which was obviously tested daily, as I would soon find out.

Seated in his back yard among his many fruit trees, George used a special slate with a stylus that he received from a Canadian doctor (similar to a child’s "Etch-a-Sketch") to write short replies. After each sentence is written and read, he wipes the slate clean using a switch that slides from left to right. For longer conversations, he depends on a writing pad and pen. For our talk, he used both.

"Inside was too hot. It’s better out here," he wrote. I nodded, noticing he was left handed. "So, what is it you need from me?"

I told him that I would be needing for him to go back in time as it were, and to tell me about his life, his condition and how he has to adapt to all this change. Even as I said the words, I could see the pain in his eyes. He wrote, "Okay shoot, but not in real, eh?"

I asked about his business, the Bed and Breakfast; he explained that it had been operating since 1991, but he was always involved in the insurance industry. Career-wise, George Morgan "has letters after his name" - BA, CLU and ChFC - and began his education at Caribbean Union College, where he graduated in 1961 with a BA degree in Liberal Arts. He went on to the University of Toronto, where he specialised in Business Administration and also to Ryerson Polytechnic where he advanced in Marketing and Sales. He was also LIMRA trained and holds certification in Agency Training from such institutions as 41st Field Officer School, Dallas, Texas, the School of Management and Studies at Banff Center, Canada and 66th Management Orientation School in Hartford Connecticut, USA. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

"I was in the industry for 44 years ‘all told’," he wrote carefully in longhand.

"I returned to Trinidad in ‘83 as Deputy Managing Director - Marketing, with Alico/Algico. I entered the industry at age 22, with Sun Life of Canada. Then we brought in Maritime Life to Trinidad and Tobago."

While abroad, George had later moved to Empire Life Insurance Company under the sponsorship of Morgan & Sattaur Insurance Agency, the first black Life Insurance Agency in Toronto. It was while at this agency he became a member of the MDRT organisation and first qualified in 1974. He qualified also in 1996-1998, doing more than six million dollars of personal sales. In 1994, he became one of the first Chartered Financial Consultants in the Region, from agent, to executive training officer of the leading insurance conglomerates in the Caribbean and the Americas. He was also the first black person in Standard Life Insurance Company (to qualify in over 145 years), chosen after winning a competition to visit the Standard Life Head Office in Scotland. In 1984 he was appointed to head the project of twinning Port-of-Spain with the city of Atlanta under Mayor and Ambassador Andy Young. This was accomplished in 1986 and written into the law in Washington DC.

Before his illness, he was a trainer and consultant, producing sales promotional material for insurance companies to be used in their training programmes for their sales staff or networking system. Four years ago, he conducted similar training in the Bahamas, Cuba, Suriname, South America, the Eastern Caribbean Islands and Belize while contracted to six insurance companies in these regions. He even brought out some of these training volumes for me to peruse, some as thick and heavy as a Bible. I imagined him standing on the podium, eyes bright, conducting his lectures to many eager insurance agents... it was a huge contrast to the quiet man seated across from me.

"So are you retired now?" I asked. He paused, leaned his head to one side, then slowly wrote, "I am not retired, but when you lose your voice, you are retired from begging people to buy insurance, (he gave a small smile as he penned that sentence) and lecturing to Managers and Agents around the Eastern Caribbean and the Americas, but there is lots of things that I can still do without a voice. Like, for instance, I have a lot of sales experience and a whole set of knowledge, so I can re-write the book on insurance, training material that works, CDS, DVDs "voice overs" and anything to do with sales... ask me.

"Over the past 44 years, in all aspects of sales you literally have to make ‘10 calls a day’, but people... my deceased Top Salesmen, Fred Williams and Neil Jones, we made on the average, 16-20 calls per day for seven days per week for over 40 years. You love to use your voice at all times. During the four and a half years of my sales career, I was attached to CL Financial/Clico, doing special training/presenting/lecturing to their field force throughout their international market, especially the Bahamas, then headed by Claudius Dacon. Laurence Duprey, the Chairman of CL Financial sent me all over to rejuvenate their swagging production."

I then asked him when was it he first noticed that he started to lose his power of speech.

"While lecturing, I made VHS tapes of my lecture sessions in Guyana; upon reviewing them in 2001, I observed I was experiencing a lot of ‘breaks’ during my presentations. I experienced them in Freeport and Nassau a lot, but I never took it on. When you see yourself talking, it’s a different thing, so I decided to visit here in Trinidad Dr Dwarika - a specialist ENT - to begin an investigation. Since then, this investigation took (me) all over Trinidad, Canada and I am still to go to the MAYO Clinic to get answers."

His medical file, spiral bound and as thick as a CXC text book sat on the table, testament to his continuing odyssey. In it were letters to doctors abroad, correspondence between local and foreign surgeons, specialists, consultants... all recommending different types of tests. He has even visited the Sleep and Neuropsychiatry Institute and the Neuromuscular Clinic of Sunny Brook Women’s College Health Sciences Center (both are in Canada) as well as New York Hospital. Some parts read like a medical textbook, describing multiple investigations of his condition "...He suffers from bulbar palsy and from dysplasia; he is now completely unable to talk." EMGs, MRIs, X-rays of the throat, head and neck regions were done, all of which have been negative. Other parts consist of letters George wrote various medical organisations in Trinidad and Tobago and abroad to seek help, and even touching correspondence between doctors discussing his condition and referring him to their colleagues. But things have deteriorated further, for he now has problems swallowing and has a lesser ability to cough. Mild hypertension and diabetes also plague him to some degree, but of course, medications are readily available for those, unlike this other unknown condition.

"It cost me so far over $100,000 TT and $40,000 CAN over the past four years from 2001 to investigate my loss of voice," George’s pen danced on the paper.

"In fact, it was the good nature of Claudius Dacon, who met me in Nassau coming off the plane at the airport and drove me directly to the doctor’s Hospital and spent three hours with me riddled in pain before I returned to Trinidad. Hats off to Mr Dacon; I am forever in his debt..."