By April Dembosky, KQED, KFF Health News

When doctors told her they had to remove her tongue and voice box to save her life from the cancer that had invaded her mouth, Sonya Sotinsky sat down with a microphone to record herself saying the things she would never again be able to say.

“Happy birthday” and “I’m proud of you” topped the phrases she banked for her husband and two daughters, as well as “I’ll be right with you,” intended for customers at the architecture firm she co-owns in Tucson, Arizona.

Thinking about the grandchildren she desperately hoped to see born one day, she also recorded herself reading more than a dozen children’s books, from the Eloise series to Dr. Seuss, to one day play for them at bedtime.

But one of the biggest categories of sound files she banked was a stri

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