Zapped

I decided to share the treatment experience I’m going through for my depression. I’ve always used my blog as an outlet to share what I’m going through in the hopes that it may help other people who struggle with depression. I also want to show that I’m a fighter when it comes to this struggle; I’m not just laying over and letting depression keep kicking at me. I’m fighting back against it because I want to get better. I think there’s a misconception that people struggling with depression don’t want to get better. That may be the case with some people but it’s not the case for me. I see a therapist, I take my psych meds, and now I am partaking in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). That’s right. I am voluntarily subjecting my brain to seizures in the hopes of my depression lifting.

In the olden days, the treatment was called electric shock therapy and it was a terrible thing to go through. Imagine horrible images of a patient being strapped down to a table, told to bite down on something, and then shocked while still conscious. Luckily, it is no longer the olden days and it has a success rate of over 80%. It is a primary treatment for those patients who are resistant to the psych meds, of which I am.

ECT is done much more humanly now and I will now share with you what a typical treatment experience is like. I arrive at the hospital around quarter to seven and check in. Once that’s all done, I walk myself to the Same Day Surgery department. Since I’m on treatment number ten now, all the staff know me and greet me with a smile which always eases some of the tension I have.

They put me in a small room where I change out of my clothes and get to wear a lovely hospital gown. The nurse who always takes me to my room always gives me a warm blanket and let me tell you, I love those warm blankets! I remember them from my two months in the hospital when I was diagnosed with leukemia and they’re just like hug and are rather comforting.

I then have to wait for a few minutes for my nurse to come and start an IV followed by a visit from the anesthetist who double checks to make sure my heart and lungs are good to go for the procedure. My blood pressure has spiked a little and although I’m already on high blood pressure medicine, they give me two additional drugs into my IV to keep my blood pressure under control. I then wait for my turn to be wheeled into the ECT room. They have a dedicated ECT room at the hospital I go to so it’s all very much routine and I’m not the only one getting zapped (today, for instance I was number 5).

The waiting is probably the hardest part but eventually, a nurse arrives and I hop on the gurney and off we go into the surgical department which is always cold. By this time my nice warm blanket has cooled off which is a bummer. Anyway, I’m wheeled into the ECT room and the nurse gets all busy swabbing my forehead and upper chest with alcohol so that she can then stick various pads on me. Some are to track my brain waves while the others keep track of my heartbeat. When my IV is started in the little room, they also put the disposable blood pressure cuff on and it’s become a running joke with the anesthetist that he has to flip the cuff to my other arm because the nurse always puts it on the arm that has the IV in it which is a no-no. By this time the psychiatrist has greeted me a good morning.

Once the anesthetist switches the cuff and I’m hooked up to the various machines, the best part comes – the anesthesia. A mask is put over my mouth and I start taking deep breaths and eventually I float off into never never land. Once I’m out, I am then given a muscle relaxant in the IV. The reason for this is because the seizure that is induced is a grand mal seizure and the muscle relaxant keeps me from shaking. For the first few treatments they would put a blood pressure cuff around my lower leg and pump it up to keep the muscle relaxant from going into my foot. This allows the doctor to make sure the seizure is going but they haven’t had to do that the last couple of times.

A special gel is globbed on my right temple and the top of my head. This is for the electrodes that will deliver the zaps to induce the seizure. I hate the gel. They don’t try and wipe it out afterwards so by the time I get home, it’s dried which then flakes big time when I try to brush it out.

To protect my teeth from any shaking I might do, a mouth guard is placed in my mouth. Once I’m out from the anesthesia, I remember nothing of the experience. The next thing I know I’m waking up in the recovery room where I stay for about twenty minutes or so. Once the nurses there get a few sets of good vitals, my IV is removed and I’m wheeled back to my little room in Same Day Surgery. I’m usually still groggy from the anesthesia and I typically have a small headache (after all, I did just get zapped with electricity). I have to stay there until those nurses get a few sets of vitals and once that has happened, I get to put my clothes back on.

Now getting dressed is sometimes a bit comical because my balance after a treatment is way off for a few hours so I have to be careful putting my clothes back on. I don’t need to break my feet again. Once dressed, I sign my discharge papers and call my ride to come pick me up. I all, I’m usually at the hospital between three and four hours. It really all depends on how many people are getting treatment that morning and how I respond to the anesthesia.

I have been super lucky in that I’ve had good friends volunteer to take me to the hospital and pick me up. Because I’m under general anesthesia, I can’t drive on treatment days nor can I work. I’ve missed some days of school when I first started the treatments but last week and this we’ve been on winter break so I haven’t had to worry about missing work. School starts up again next week and I’ll have to miss a few more days. In total, I believe my doctor wants me to get to eighteen treatments. Today was number ten which is an important mark to get to as results start to show up around treatment nine. It’s still a little early to tell but I think the treatments are working. Before, I really didn’t care about how clean my apartment was (depression takes away all caring) but I’ve noticed over the last few days that the mess in the kitchen is bothering me. Based on that, I’ve set the small goal of having my kitchen cleaned by the end of the week.

My next treatment isn’t until Friday (the doctor is off on Wednesday) which is nice because the more treatments I have in a week the more exhausted I become. I’m usually wiped out for the rest of the treatment day and last week I did back to back treatments two days in a row which was rough. I hope I don’t have to do that again.

Once I’m done with the ECT treatments, I’ll still be on my psych meds but the hope is that they might work better. I will also have to have periodic maintenance treatments to keep the depression in check.

So there you have it, what I’m doing to try and better myself. It wasn’t an easy decision to come to once my therapist brought up the idea but as I have said all along, I want to get better. As a fellow teacher told me when I discussed ECT with her, I deserve to have my chance at happiness and hopefully, my jolts of electricity will help me get there.

Dana