Re: dealing with my depression

[Guest guest]

Lynn,

I hope all

continues to improve for you!

About the shower and the walk, I would reverse them if I were you.

I need the shower

after the morning walk but my walk around the block is up to about two and a

half miles. I use Google Earth to

measure my route. It is fun for

the computer geeks in the group.

I have a game that

I play with the folks in the passing cars. I give a giant wave of a four-foot arc so that drivers can’t

miss it. Most wave back and my

hope is I can bring a smile to at least one person. My guess is that they all go to work and tell folks about

the crazy old man who waved to them on the way to work.

I enjoy any

reaction I get but the ones who return a big smile and wave are the one’s who

get the idea that I am wishing them a good day. I don’t always remember this when I am down in the dumps but

I think getting someone to smile is one of the best medicines around. It is positive feedback that you have

made contact with another of God’s creatures. I have tried waving to the dogs and cats but they don’t

respond like humans. The dogs just

bark and run after me to test my ticker.

My experience tells

me that you might as well get used to saying “no Beta Blockers” as at least

some medical staff read stuff as a last resort. Sort of like the old saying, “if all else fails, read the instructions”.

It’s funny but when

I am depressed I want my comfort food.

I never forget to eat. Sometimes

I am on a See Food Diet.

Keep smiling – It is

hard to smile and be depressed at the same time.

Joe S.

God Loves Us All

-----Original

Message-----

From:

[mailto: ]On Behalf Of Lynn

Siprelle

Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006

8:48 PM

Subject: dealing with my

depression

Going to the

ER on Monday after my little " drum solos " was actually

good for me. Nothing was wrong, yada yada. I got through without dying

and without getting bulldozed. (hubby) and I repeated " NO BETA

BLOCKERS " so much that finally a nurse said, " OK! We got it! No beta

blockers! " I got my new MedicAlert bracelet listing " no beta

blockers "

too, so I feel a lot better about my chances under unfamiliar care now.

Plus also it's two tone gold and silver titanium! ooooh!

At therapy last night we talked about why I came back from the

dead--why, if I was happy being dead, and I was, I came back, and how

did I feel about that. " I imagine you feel meaningless, " she

said. I

initially said no, not at all, but when I thought about it

further--yeah! I did, and I didn't really even know it. Why DID I come

back? I mean, I have all kinds of reasons to live; my husband loves me

deeply, I have two little girls who need me, I haven't buried my

parents yet and I'd never put them through burying me before them if I

could. But people in the exact same circumstances die all the time.

That's not all it takes to stay alive.

So why did I come back? I don't know. I imagine it'll become clear as

time goes in, and in the meantime, there are my children, my parents

and my husband. And myself.

My therapist got me to commit to one daily physical self-care thing for

the week; when I'm depressed I forget to eat, I don't shower, I wear

the same clothes for days, etc. I committed to walking around the

block. Did it first thing this morning after I took a shower.

Lynn S.

------

Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitter

http://www.siprelle.com

NOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without

warning, warrant, or notice.

[Guest guest]

Dear Lynn:

I understand your question about what is the reason you came back from

your near death experience, and my short answer is that your mission

here on earth is not yet complete. IE: God is not finished with you

yet. Let's face it, you have two little girls that would be absolutely

devastated if something happened to their mom, and they could never see

her again. Trust me, I speak from personal experience, and there is

nothing I would not give to be able to see my mother again. I was 5

when my mother took her own life and to say that her death shattered our

family would be an understatement. I think that when people get so

depressed and down on themselves they get stuck in that rut, and they

don't stop to think about how their actions affect their loved ones. If

they did stop and think, it would be like what happened in the Christmas

movie where the man was going to jump off the bridge and then he sees

what life would have been like if he had never been born. Once he

snapped out of it enough to realize how much his life meant to so many

others, he realized what a gift life really is.

Yes heart disease is horrible, and we all have our days when we feel

weak and it takes all of our strength to get up and move, but, as far as

I am concerned, life no matter what is better than the alternative. I

have had several surgeries over the past 20 years, and one thing I've

always made myself do everyday is to get up, take a shower and get

dressed. To me that is the one thing I will not do without as it makes

you feel better and more alive after you get cleaned up and put on clean

clothes. To my way of thinking if I am sick enough not to get up and

get dressed, then I must be pretty sick...

Yes you do need to put aside some period of time each day and do

something special for yourself, but, please do not forget about your

precious little girls. Somehow you need to work through your depression

and find a way to live a meaningful life for their sakes too. Kids are

so very intuitive and they pick up on things that you would never dream

of. I always wondered if it was my fault that my mother left us, had I

done something bad? It wasn't until years later that I was told the

truth about what really happened, but just the same I felt the guilt as

a youngster. At times I wondered if she didn't love me if she chose to

leave me. I had to work through my own feelings about her death, but

over time I came to realize that it had nothing to do with me. She was

just so wrapped up with her own problems that she just could not see any

other way out, and she never considered how it would affect us, or I'm

sure she would not have done what she did.

I guess this personal experience left me with the opposite reaction, I

want to live with a fervor. I have my times of feeling down, but when I

think about not being here, there is just something inside of me that

fights to stay alive. So for me, when my doctors offered me the chance

of getting this marvelous little devise, I jumped at it. Why not? Yes

the thoughts of possibly being shocked are a bit scary, but, I have

survived being zapped as a teenager, while cleaning an oven with a

copper scrub ball and I got too close to the light bulb in the oven.

Boy, I felt that surge right up my arm to my shoulder. It was a jolt

that I never forgot, but, I did survive and that is my point.

Yes there are risks involved with any surgery, but, you need to weigh

those risks against the pluses. To my way of thinking the positive

benefits far outweigh any negative side effects or worries I may have

had. I can't live my life on " what f's " . The " what ifs " may never

happen, and I'm not going to worry myself over something I have no

control over or may never happen. Worrying is a waste of energy and you

only make yourself miserable. So why not just relax, take a deep

breath, and just put one foot in front of the other and do the best you

can each and every day. No one can ask for anymore or any less than

your best.

Life is a gift. None of us know how long a life we will have. The

important thing is to make the best of every minute you have and if that

means putting aside your fears and having the ICD Surgery, then go for

it. Your husband and your daughters will thank you for it and I'm sure

you will all live a longer, happier life once it is over and done with.

Actually, once I had made the decision to have my surgery done, frankly

I couldn't wait to get it done with and behind me so I could get on with

my life. I did not like being in that holding pattern, I wanted to get

on with it, and I am glad I did.

Ok, off my soap box for now, but, I felt that I had to maybe give you

the perspective from the viewpoint of someone who lost their mother

needlessly and how it affected my father, my two brothers,my sister and

me. If you need help counciling is available and it can be very

helpful, but opening up is the first step and I commend you for taking

that first step.

We Are Here If You Need Us,

Jody Champlin

[Guest guest]

Dear Jody... I'm not Lynn, but your note really says a whole lot - to all of us. I'm brand-new here...and have an ICD that is just a week old today. Yup - I have a cell-phone sort of "lump" on my upper left chest and the bruises and sore arm to prove it - lol. My name's Ann and I am sooo happy to have found this group! At this point I have so many questions...and the docs aren't awfully good at answers, I'm afraid! There wasn't much thinking involved with the whole process for me. On August 28 I collapsed at work...and my heart was trying to stop. Thank God I work at a retirement community with an RN on staff. I had just enough time to call her on the phone and tell her I felt awful...she came

running, hollered for 911 and off I went in the business-end of the ambulance. From there I was sent home while my doc and my cardiologist conferred. For a while they were considering bypass surgery and decided that it might not help me very much anyway...and that the ICD will definitely be a big help. A couple of weeks of wandering around my second floor apartment, unable to go to work, unable to do anything much...was more than enough time to have me praying fervently for some kind of a solution to my problem. Just in time, it was. My heart tried to stop another couple of times while I was in the hospital waiting for the surgery. I have a compression fraction that makes people gasp and wonder how it is I get through the day. My answer is - well, I'm still here! And yes, I work full

time. Depressed? I can't be depressed. I was almost dead three times in two weeks. This is waaay better than that! mac+ (which is what my friends call me...and you are my friends; I know that already) PS don't let the "+" mystify you...I'm a priest. And yes...I'm doing a wedding on Saturday...lol

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynn, My sister died at age 32 and left behind a 6 year old little boy. He was home alone with her when she died of sudden death. It was 3 days before xmas. I have raised my nephew who is now 24 years old. Please think about your little girls, they really need a mother. I have loved my nephew and raised him like he is mine, but it still doesn't replace his mother. He remembers her and still suffers to this day about his mom. He has been in and out of counseling his entire life and will probably never understand his situation. There have been TONS of times i felt very depressed and wished I would have died instead of her, and i have come to terms with my heart condition, but when i'm down I think about him. He still needs me and tells me almost daily. So now that my doctors are telling me it's time for an ICD, I'm not just thinking about me. I'm really thinking about

being here for him. It's hard to get through a bout of depression, been there done that.....but we have to pull through and wake up, get that shower, get dressed and feel blessed for one more day. and take one day at a time. pattiLynn Siprelle <lynn@...> wrote: Going to the ER on Monday after my little "drum solos" was actually good for me. Nothing was wrong, yada yada. I got through without dying and without getting bulldozed. (hubby) and I repeated "NO

BETA BLOCKERS" so much that finally a nurse said, "OK! We got it! No beta blockers!" I got my new MedicAlert bracelet listing "no beta blockers" too, so I feel a lot better about my chances under unfamiliar care now. Plus also it's two tone gold and silver titanium! ooooh!At therapy last night we talked about why I came back from the dead--why, if I was happy being dead, and I was, I came back, and how did I feel about that. "I imagine you feel meaningless," she said. I initially said no, not at all, but when I thought about it further--yeah! I did, and I didn't really even know it. Why DID I come back? I mean, I have all kinds of reasons to live; my husband loves me deeply, I have two little girls who need me, I haven't buried my parents yet and I'd never put them through burying me before them if I could. But people in the exact same circumstances die all the time. That's not all it takes to stay

alive.So why did I come back? I don't know. I imagine it'll become clear as time goes in, and in the meantime, there are my children, my parents and my husband. And myself.My therapist got me to commit to one daily physical self-care thing for the week; when I'm depressed I forget to eat, I don't shower, I wear the same clothes for days, etc. I committed to walking around the block. Did it first thing this morning after I took a shower.Lynn S.------Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitterhttp://www.siprelle.comNOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice.

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[Guest guest]

> I hope all continues to improve for you!  About the shower and the

> walk, I would reverse them if I were you.

Well I would except for one thing: If I get dressed to walk I won't get

UNdressed to shower--seriously, once I'm dressed that's it. And

showering in your clothes is hard on the fabric.

Yes, I'm feeling better.

Lynn S.

------

Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitter

http://www.siprelle.com

NOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without

warning, warrant, or notice.

[Guest guest]

I'm going back and answering all your kind replies. Sorry it's taken so

long:

> Trust me, I speak from personal experience, and there is

> nothing I would not give to be able to see my mother again.

You will. If I learned one thing from my death experience it's that

separation is an illusion. You will be with her again. You already are;

we just have a very hard time as humans seeing this--that we're all

always together, never apart, all of us. I experienced it firsthand and

I still lose that awareness most of the time. I'm in tears for you, and

I'm so sorry you went through that. (and PLEASE don't take what I just

wrote the wrong way!)

> Yes you do need to put aside some period of time each day and do

> something special for yourself, but, please do not forget about your

> precious little girls. Somehow you need to work through your

> depression

> and find a way to live a meaningful life for their sakes too.

Living for my girls is what I try to do, believe me. I try to talk to

my girls about it without making them responsible for either my sadness

or cheering me up, which is a fine line from their perspective since

kids think everything's about them. I tell them mama's heart is still

healing and sometimes it makes her so sad it's hard to do much but that

I'm getting better. And then I work to get better.

> The

> important thing is to make the best of every minute you have and if

> that

> means putting aside your fears and having the ICD Surgery, then go for

> it. Your husband and your daughters will thank you for it and I'm sure

> you will all live a longer, happier life once it is over and done with.

To be clear: I had my implant surgery 5/17/06, my husband's birthday;

he says it was the best present he ever got. I never once questioned

getting it, though I'm just now getting used to the thing.

xo,

Lynn S.

------

Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitter

http://www.siprelle.com

NOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without

warning, warrant, or notice.

[Guest guest]

> My sister died at age 32 and left behind a 6 year old little boy.  He

> was home alone with her when she died of sudden death. 

This was my greatest fear. In 2003 I had an angina attack so bad I

thought I was dying. I was home alone with a 2-year-old and a

6-year-old; I lay on the floor with the portable phone and begged the

911 dispatcher to hurry and come get me before they woke up and found

my body.

Bless you for taking care of your nephew.

xo,

L

------

Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitter

http://www.siprelle.com

NOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without

warning, warrant, or notice.

[Guest guest]

> I'm brand-new here...and have an ICD that is just a week old today. 

Welcome! This is an incredibly helpful, wonderful list.

Lynn S.

------

Mama, homeschooler, writer, activist, spinner & knitter

http://www.siprelle.com

NOTICE: The National Security Agency may have read this email without

warning, warrant, or notice.

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: " Lynn Siprelle "

> If I get dressed to walk

> I won't get UNdressed to shower

rotflmao (Now if I could only do something about my belly.)

Of course you don't, Lynn. that's why they call it wash and wear and not

wear and wash.

From california where wearing clothes during the shower is perfectly

acceptable, in fact expected, when it's a bridal or baby shower.

Bill