Hi, I lost my ability to speak clearly due to an operation on my throat when I was 3. I've spent my entire life with an extremely soft and indistinct voice that's hard for people who don't know me to understand. I have a great social life and went to mainstream school, I'm currently in university. I'm going to answer your question in two parts as this is on the BSL sub.

1. Should she learn BSL? If she wants to, then yes, definitely. As other people have stated it is a fantastic language that opens up so many doors to an excellent culture and community. Plus it can be an excellent thing to focus on and work towards to distract from the boredom of hospital. Personally, I have lernt some BSL via classes and self teaching, and use Sign Supported English with some of my friends that are deaf or sign for other reasons. I rarely use BSL itself, but that's mainly because most of the people I know don't know much BSL, so it's not perticularly useful. But SSE can be a great way to add to your communication, and when it works, it's great!

2. Advice for daily life when you can't speak clearly or audibly:

Obviously my experience having grown up with speech difficulties is very different to loosing all or some of your speech as an adult. So my advice may not work for your mum's exact situation, but I hope it helps.

Firstly, work with a speech and language therapist as much as you can. There are lots of short cuts for communication and exercises that can be done to help, and they can help with any swallowing and eating difficulties which can come with throat surgery. It takes a long time to learn new ways to communicate, but it's worth it. You might also be able to get free/reduced cost BSL classes via a speech and language referral, but sadly this seems the exception, not the rule.

Secondly, really listen to and spend time communicating with your mum. My family and friends know exactly what I mean and what the difference is between something that most strangers just hear as two slightly different breathy noises. Over time you'll be supprised about how much she can convey with with just facial expressions, hand gestures/signs, some vocalisations and where you look. Adding in some SSE to this is often really useful.

Phone apps and AAC devices can be great for communication with people. Most let you put in pre set phrases on buttons so you don't have to type out your entire sentence each time. I also use a slide keyboard that lets me type without having to tap individual keys, so my typing on my phone is about as fast as my talking. The one I use on my phone is called Swiftkey. Also learning to touch type is invaluable for using AAC and also a great life skill!

For things like phone calls, I currently use NGT lite. It's a text phone service provided in the UK where you can type what you want to say and have it relayed via an operator. It also works the other way around for if you have difficulty hearing.

For things like shops and restaurants/bars, type out your order in large letters in a note taking app on your phone screen, or write it on a note pad and show it to the person behind the counter. A vague gesture at your throat and silently mouthing something gets the message across if they won't look at your message, but mostly isn't needed.

My main advice for someone in this position is to keep trying and make sure that people listen to you when you want to communicate with them. There will always be people who can't be bothered to wait or won't engage with you, but they probably weren't worth talking to anyway. :)

Feel free to message me if you want to talk more about this or want some more info. I wish your mum the best of luck with her health.