By Ruth Dant, England

THE VENRICK HOUSEHOLD has enjoyed a special treat for many years as a result of Jean having an English pen-pal. My wife began writing to Ruth in 1947 and because of this dedicated exchange of letters through the years, the thoughts and family notes between an American girl and an English girl have been uniquely shared via letters. For 61 years the discipline of the "old fashioned" way of correspondence (hand written letters) has produced a sincere appreciation of each pen pal; and as life became crowded with family, for both my wife and her English friend, their correspondence settled down to an annual Christmas letter. That annual contact was sufficient excitement though in receiving a sometimes stuffed envelope with photos and nearly a dozen two-sided handwritten pages of news and notes back and forth from England and America. With the advent of e-mail, our joy has been increased many times. The article you are about to read is a very personal story by Ruth Dant as she shares the health problems and the ultimate passing of her beloved husband, Charles. Ruth wanted us to be sure to mention her UK or English nationality, and thereby "...explain the weird way of spelling we UK citizens have." The Venricks, here in America, are grateful to my wife's English friend, Ruth Dant, for deciding to share her very personal experiences. It is our hope readers of THE WORDWRIGHT will find Ruth's experiences equally interesting and informative. ###

My Husband Suffered With Depression

After nearly forty years sharing life with a husband suffering from Depression, albeit controlled for twenty-seven of those years by the drug Lithium, to hear the words "you don't have Depression any more" was such a relief. However, it was not to be, someone had got it wrong, instead shortly after the information was given he became mentally ill again, was diagnosed with manic depression and told this was a bi-polar disorder. It may, however, be better to go back to the very beginning of his illness and diagnosis so that you can more easily understand what life has been like for most of those years.

When we married, just over 53 years ago, there was no indication that my husband might one day become a victim of Depression. After living with my parents in law for 18 months we bought a small two-bedroomed house almost in the centre of Cambridge, where we lived then, and settled down to enjoying married life together in our own home. After we had been married almost 4 years our eldest son, Philip, was born in the local Maternity hospital, followed almost 2 years later by our second son, Mark, this time born at home. We enjoyed our sons as they grew up but sadly when Mark was about ten months old my husbands father died, following a spell in hospital with Clinical Depression, where they also diagnosed prostate cancer. My husband was told that, with medication, his dad could possibly survive for four to five years. This was not to be and, losing his will to live, he died in August of the year in which he was diagnosed. About three weeks before he passed away he had told me that my mother-in-law had been sectioned in her late teens as she was suffering from paranoid delusions, seeing people in the garden where there was no one, for example. This also happened again during the early part of their marriage before my husband was born, and she spent some time in a psychiatric ward, although she was not sectioned at that time. It seems, therefore, that my dear husband could have the tendency, given the right trigger, to fall victim to mental illness, since both his parents suffered from it in different ways, as did some of my father-in-law's close relatives.

About four years after my father-in-law's death I gave birth to our daughter, Joy, thus completing our family. Our family life was very happy, although with its ups and downs, Philip had started school at 5 with Mark following in the term in which he would be 5. Then, just before our daughter's third birthday, we moved into a three-bedroomed terraced house in Cherry Hinton, which before the war had been a village but was now included within the City boundary, settling in very happily to life there, joining the local Baptist Church and becoming involved in its various activities. Our daughter started school in the term in which she was 5 and our life as a family continued very happily. Philip sat for the 11+ and gained a place at the local grammar school and then at the beginning of his first year there my husband was diagnosed with Clinical or Endogenous depression (which apparently means 'from within' rather than having an external cause e.g. a death in the family). It began when he developed an abscess under one of his teeth and upon its extraction was given pencillin to prevent problems, however it was thought this could have been the 'trigger' which began his Depression problems One day, Mark's 10th birthday actually, I returned from my morning job at about 1 p.m. to find my husband and a colleague sitting in the kitchen. He had been sent home because he had had a breakdown at work and couldn't cope any more at that time. Visits to the surgery and psychiatrists followed but no firm diagnosis was made then. Shortly after this he began to think he had prostate cancer like his dad and began a circle of 'couldn't pass water because he had prostrate problems' and then wouldn't drink because 'it would make the problem worse'. He was admitted to a special psychiatric clinic which was a part of Addenbrooke's Hospital, but after only a few days there was transferred to Kent House which was in the grounds and part of the local Psychiatric Hospital called Fulbourn Hospital. If my memory is correct he was sectioned at that time and I was asked to sign a form allowing them to give him emergency ECT in order to break the circle. The reason for this ECT I was told was that he would suffer dehydration because he wasn't taking fluids and then become physically ill. He had five sessions and began to improve although now they had to find the right medication to continue the improvement.

During the next few years he had more ECT's both as an in-patient and as an out-patient, but to his credit he manfully struggled to work even though I often had to push him to get up, washed and shaved and out to his employment. There was one particular day when I followed him to make sure he actually did go in the right direction. Another time I rang his Chief Assistant to ascertain that he had actually arrived and was assured that he had. When he was well he enjoyed our family life and we had quite a few good family holidays at the seaside staying either in a caravan or other self-catering venue. As we had no car at that time we usually travelled by coach or train although one year, the boys having gone to a Scripture Union camp, my husband, daughter and myself went off to the Norfolk coast on a Moped and a Honda C50 motor bike respectively. On these occasions he seemed to be 'normal' and we were able to ignore his illness, then there were other occasions when he would be extremely difficult and either on a high, or down deep in depression when he wouldn't talk to us, or want us to talk to him. Although there were short periods when he was unable to work, because of more ECT's some in hospital and some as an outpatient, he continued to go when he was able. He was also given a different job in the laboratory where he worked at the time, which needed less concentration and he didn't need an assistant to help him with it. Eventually the funding for this particular post came to an end and no more, unfortunately, was forthcoming so he was given 'as much time as he needed' to find another job. After many job applications and refusals, he at last secured a position as Chemistry Technician at a local Independent boys school where he was able to continue, suffering only one bout of depression shortly after commencing there. During this bout they found that Lithium would keep him on an even keel, which it did once they had worked out the correct dosage, for the rest of his working life.

It had always been my husband's wish that we move into a smaller property when he retired so we began looking for a Bungalow. However, the prices in and around Cambridge were too expensive for us so we decided the only thing was to look wider. Although we looked for something equidistant from our children, this proved impossible and eventually we bought the one I now live in which happens to be only three miles from our daughter's home. One of my husband's doctors in Cambridge had told him that he would probably be able to cease taking Lithium once he retired. However, the doctor whose practice we joined on moving here, told him he would need to keep taking it for the rest of his life, so he continued with it. Life proceeded on a fairly even keel and we decided to attend the small Methodist chapel in the village where we lived. They were very happy to have us join their congregation and we were able to help them in various ways. My husband continued with his Lay Preaching which he had been doing since his early twenties, mostly in the Bedfordshire Baptist churches but he also helped out in some of the Methodist circuits, particularly the St. Neots one. When the village Methodist chapel was forced to close, due to lack of numbers and an ageing congregation, we went back to our Baptist roots and attended Ampthill Baptist Church where we continued worshipping during the last five years. All this time his depression had been controlled by the Lithium he was taking until three years ago when he began to suffer from tummy trouble and, to cut a long story short, it was found that he was suffering from mild Lithium poisoning through taking too high a dosage for his age. The doctor reduced the dose and eventually he recovered and was back to normal. A year or more later, he began once more to suffer with the same tummy trouble he had had previously which went on almost the whole of the summer, culminating in him collapsing in our bathroom and having to be rushed by ambulance to hospital where it was found he was again suffering from Lithium poisoning although this time, much more seriously. At the hospital they immediately stopped his Lithium and endeavoured to clear his system of the drug which took quite some time. While they were doing this he remained in hospital refusing in the beginning to drink or eat and becoming dehydrated, so was on a saline drip for two or three weeks. Eventually he was well enough to come home but it took some time for him to fully recover.

Our doctor was reluctant to prescribe another anti-depressant without a Psychiatrists say so, therefore, he arranged for him to see one and an appointment was eventually made. During this time he seemed to be perfectly normal and not to be suffering from depression at all, which brings us back to the beginning of this article when I mentioned the relief we both felt on being told "you no longer have Depression". At last we were both free of the effects of this very difficult illness.

However, as I said in the beginning this was not to be: he began a course on a different anti-depressant which first started to improve his condition but this did not continue. Following this he was diagnosed with manic depression or bi-polar disorder. This was followed by several other anti-depressants on a trial basis, together, if my memory is correct, with the original new medication. However, his condition did not improve, if anything it got worse and he become quite aggressive and difficult to live with including various mood swings. One moment he would be the kind and loving man I had married and then he would digress into a very unpleasant person indeed, doing all kinds of strange things, so much so that I began to think he was suffering the first stages of Alzheimer's. To cut a very long story short he was finally admitted on Section (detained under the Mental Health Act) to the Psychiatric Wing of our local hospital where he remained for about six to seven weeks. He became a voluntary patient after four weeks and was allowed several day visits, some of them to home and it was planned he would come home for his first overnight visit on the day before his 76th Birthday so that I and my daughter could take him out for lunch to celebrate. We were also to have a celebration tea on the Sunday when our elder son, his wife and family were due to come and share this with him. Sadly, during the week prior to this event, he developed a urine infection and was sent over to the AAU ward to be given fluids overnight. Then on the Saturday he died very suddenly of a massive bleed to his brain stem, totally unexpected and what caused it we will never know. Whether he would have ever been found a suitable anti-depressant to control his manic depression, again we will never know. However. I was told by my doctor when I had to see him for my medication a couple of weeks later, that "he was showing signs of dementia and I could have been facing five very difficult years" so perhaps his death was a blessing for him, rather than the tragedy it seemed at the time.

Tailpiece:

Perhaps in this article I have glossed over much of the happenings of my husband's life as a depressed person, or rather a person who suffered with Depression, but I feel that many of the things which occurred are better left un-recorded and in any case are probably buried so deep in my memory that I have been unable to tease them out. Should any one reading this article feel unable to understand why I have written it after my husband's death, may I say that it was commenced long before that event and I felt it only right to revise and complete it.

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THANK YOU RUTH, for writing about a very personal time of your life.
THE WORDWRIGHT