How To Treat Depression?

Dog can feel emotions, as you can see so evidently on my boys here. The guy in the white hat below, is a good

friend of Danny's "baby sister," Margie. Danny had never met the guy, "Bunk," until he came to the hospital with Margie . He ended up not only building this ramp for Danny, with other friends Danny had never met before, but also giving Danny a ride home, in his Jazzy, electric wheelchair; which was wheeled up into Bunk's especially equipped van. PLUS, he let him use the chair, as long as he needed it. What a guy! You can also see "Bunk," who sounds exactly like he's doing an impression of Larry The Cable Guy, in an earlier blog, showing Danny with his bloodied face. That was taken a couple of days after Danny ventured down the TEMPORARY ramp the first morning out of the hospital in his JAZZY. I had a difficult time looking him in the face, the first few days after the fall, as he would not let me clean his wound. Once he let me clean it, on the third day, I was fine. Anyway, Bunk was one of my Angels of Mercy on my mission. It was hard work for all of us; even the dogs.

As a respiratory therapist, I'm trained to treat primarily the lungs, and the heart. Cardiopulmonary Therapy. Basically, my training allows me to treat physical ailments, but how does one treat another for depression? This is a lesson I am bound to learn. Depression seems to be the one thing I've not yet been able to treat. But I AM learning. And what I've learned is that you just need to be "present" with the patient/friend, and have a lot of unconditional love for that person. Let them know, you are available for them, at all times, to help them, in any way possible. I learned this way too late to help my dear friend, Danny. He had become extremely depressed, and I did not know how to reach him. Of course, his "unknown" illness, only added to his depression. Lord knows I did try. I tried to get him to go to the doctor for years. Bless his heart, he never would. And I didn't know how to get through to him, to make him want to go.....until the end.