Summary: "When All Else Fails" is a first-person account of a man undergoing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as electroshock (Award Winner: National Mental Health Association)
Me too. I have the same name, am the same age, and have the same condition, so as you can imagine, this piece really punched me in the gut. Fortunately my case is much milder. Though I haven't yet found any medication or treatment that helped me much, I'm certainly not ready for ECT yet! Yikes! My heart goes out to our narrator, here. I see this piece is six years old and wonder how that other Rob is doing now. I hope he's managing well. It sure sounds like he's had his share of misery.
It's hard to imagine where else but public radio you might learn this story with the open mind required to change your mind.
Rob MacGruder has a clear, honest voice that immediately takes "When All Else Fails" out of the "health issues" category and right into your kitchen. MacGruder is forthcoming and descriptive of his depression. Then he takes us on an audio tour of his previous year battling the disease.
Even in those historic recordings when he rises under a dark fog of depression, MacGruder is as gentle and open as he is as narrator-after-the-fact, which is disarming and captivating. He explains that his best medicine is 0.8 amps delivered temporally for 1-2 seconds – ECT. He says it almost like "Easy Tea"
By now you've nicely stepped around the Mary Shelley. MacGruder, all 6'3" 305 pounds of him, is as light as a promise on your ear. Dan Collison's superb production and Gary Covino's friction-fit edits bring the human story and the medical scenery into perfect focus. It's certainly a new vantage on electroshock.
MacGruder continues to battle. He's fired from his job as a licensed clinical counselor for falling behind on paperwork. His children are seized because his apartment is messy. His doctor ups the dose to 3x/wk for 2 weeks. MacGruder is losing his keys but finding himself.
No one knows how ECT works – on brain chemicals, by hormone production, like a computer reset button. But as MacGruder's doctor explains, "The response rate is really the highest out of any treatment we have in psychiatry... Fifty percent of patients who fail multiple medication trials will still have a substantial response from the ECT "
After 30 ECTs, Rob MacGruder is telling us his story. Like many of our stories – of a father, worker, friend – he's trying for a happy ending. Rob's best medicine just happens to be electricity.
Turn on to "When All Else Fails", one small success.
Comments for When All Else Fails
This piece belongs to the series "Waiting it Out Series"
Produced by Dan Collison
Other pieces by Long Haul Productions
Rating Summary
2 comments
Rob Shinnick
Posted on November 18, 2010 at 03:28 AM | Permalink
Rob... 45 years old... bipolar.
Me too. I have the same name, am the same age, and have the same condition, so as you can imagine, this piece really punched me in the gut. Fortunately my case is much milder. Though I haven't yet found any medication or treatment that helped me much, I'm certainly not ready for ECT yet! Yikes! My heart goes out to our narrator, here. I see this piece is six years old and wonder how that other Rob is doing now. I hope he's managing well. It sure sounds like he's had his share of misery.
Geo Beach
Posted on June 06, 2005 at 10:08 AM | Permalink
Review of When All Else Fails
It's hard to imagine where else but public radio you might learn this story with the open mind required to change your mind.
Rob MacGruder has a clear, honest voice that immediately takes "When All Else Fails" out of the "health issues" category and right into your kitchen. MacGruder is forthcoming and descriptive of his depression. Then he takes us on an audio tour of his previous year battling the disease.
Even in those historic recordings when he rises under a dark fog of depression, MacGruder is as gentle and open as he is as narrator-after-the-fact, which is disarming and captivating. He explains that his best medicine is 0.8 amps delivered temporally for 1-2 seconds – ECT. He says it almost like "Easy Tea"
By now you've nicely stepped around the Mary Shelley. MacGruder, all 6'3" 305 pounds of him, is as light as a promise on your ear. Dan Collison's superb production and Gary Covino's friction-fit edits bring the human story and the medical scenery into perfect focus. It's certainly a new vantage on electroshock.
MacGruder continues to battle. He's fired from his job as a licensed clinical counselor for falling behind on paperwork. His children are seized because his apartment is messy. His doctor ups the dose to 3x/wk for 2 weeks. MacGruder is losing his keys but finding himself.
No one knows how ECT works – on brain chemicals, by hormone production, like a computer reset button. But as MacGruder's doctor explains, "The response rate is really the highest out of any treatment we have in psychiatry... Fifty percent of patients who fail multiple medication trials will still have a substantial response from the ECT "
After 30 ECTs, Rob MacGruder is telling us his story. Like many of our stories – of a father, worker, friend – he's trying for a happy ending. Rob's best medicine just happens to be electricity.
Turn on to "When All Else Fails", one small success.