Sisanie Bravely Shares Her Postpartum Depression Story | On Air with Ryan Seacrest 

I am so happy you are doing better Sisanie and thank you for sharing your story. You are such a brave and strong women. I know I haven’t been through what you are talking about but I have struggled with a lot of health issues physically... but because I physically wasn’t up to par I also didn’t feel well mentally. I’ve found the hardest battles have been when I felt bad mentally. I feel like I’m just rambling but I just wanted to say you are a very strong women and these kids are soooo lucky to have you as a mom.

It’s amazing what we as women (also men) can possibly go through with the birth of a child. I went through postpartum with two of my babies and didn’t know what it was at the time. I’m 55 and at that time this condition was not widely recognized or supported by doctors. It was hard to handle! I didn’t know what was wrong. I just knew that my attitude toward my baby and life was not right. Thankfully, I had a supportive husband and family that helped me deal with it. In the 80s and prior, women just had to deal with their lives and survive. The power of God and my faith pulled me through. My children are beautiful adults that never knew how tortured their mother felt. A seven day cruise six months after my third child also helped. My husband was the best. He’s not perfect though. I didn’t give him a choice. I left him with the children and had a ball. Worked for me. Don’t judge!

Postpartum is such a serious thing that i think so many people over look or don't talk about. We just posted our postpartum story as well and all about how society sets moms up for depression. We all need to build each other up and support one another.

Paranoia leads to stress and stress leads to depression. This is when you need your closest people around you the most.

Oh wow! Me and my twinsister have the same birthday as her twins😂

Your guest's smile 😃 was very beautiful. God bless you! Love ( Sexy ) Cañafuego and David

soooo I can relate... So first of all I was never able to have babies. So congratulations on your babies... Now to discuss Bell's palsy with regards to what happened to you. I want to first start off is I have SLE. It's called systemic lupus. Affects your organs pretty much your whole body. Now I I'm a fighter as best as possible now when I'm not working 50 to 70 hours a week. I try my best to do things in life. Never giving up I'm doing the things that I can do is pretty much my goal in life. Because I don't want this disease to win. I want to be able to see touch look and do as much as I'm able to. Some days are good and some days are bad. now not to get to TMI around the monthly time is the worst time for me. I'm stricken to bed for a whole day sometimes two days in a row. If I have to work it's as if my adrenaline shoots up so much that I'm able to work. When it's my day off it's like my body says okay you can shut down now. Anyhow my first time ever getting Bell's palsy was after I graduated from high school. I went to a beautiful lake with my grandmother and I got a sunburn and like a day or two later I got Bell's palsy. Now we didn't know I had SLE at the time. Anyhow I got it again in my twenties and I got it again in my 30s. I should say early 30s. And I wasn't feeling too good about 5 years ago. On the day I was sending my nephew's off to their first day of school with my sister. So I had called my doctor thinking I had an earache. No it wasn't an earache because the next morning I got this most excruciating pain behind my ear that I honestly thought I was going to die. It felt like a half a golf ball had grown behind my ear area it was a lump that could not be touched. I still have to work. So luckily I did have 4 days off in a row. I did not have health insurance at the time. But my doctor pretty much gave me a free session. I literally could not close my eye without shutting it with my finger. Drooling out the side of my mouth my tongue wasn't really working my face wasn't so much cuz it was swollen. So then 30 milligrams of OxyContin 4 or 6xs and about 3,000 mg of Tylenol a day subdued some of the pain. I literally could not lift my arms at some points. Because my normal blood pressure is 118 over like 73. And my blood pressure was 190 over 83. I was extremely photosensitive to the light. So I'd have to wear sunglasses to go to work early in the morning because the headlights if cars burned my eyes. But ironically the lights at work didn't bother me. Anyhow I was somewhat stricken to bed at times. And I can tell you that I've never felt pain like this in my entire life. It felt like I had an open wound behind my ear that was infected and a needle is hitting a nerve. Now I have extreme and I mean extreme High pain tolerance. I want to say thank God that I have that but for all the medicine that I was taking for it would barely touch the pain.. life at this point was extremely extremely hard for me. Now I went through extreme depression and PTSD from this. Now I still have after effects because of Bell's palsy. I have somewhat of a crooked smile and if I don't consciously relax my face my eye will look as if I'm winking at you. I can't lift the top of my lip so much. And I have a dimple on the bottom of my chin where you could tell like the nerve had died. Now what happens is is that The hypothalamus is where the nerves go across. And what happens when you get Bell's palsy is that your nerves die and yes your nerves can regrow but they sometimes don't regrow properlyor you can have a permanent Bell's palsy face unfortunately. Now this happened in the fall and I have to keep it as warm as possible. Now we don't know if I had herpes simplex at the time. Because I do suffer from that and everybody has it's not from a sexual disease. Or could have been shingles. The doctor at the time did not test me for that but I did push to go see an ear nose and throat doctor which I was thankful for. Because she hooked me up with someone at Mass eye and ear in Boston. With a leading specialist now all I can remember is Theresa her name and that's awful but I will tell you that I blacked out in some of these parts of my life because I was so stressed. Anyhow they really helped me and they told me to keep it as warm as possible and showed me some exercise to do at an appropriate time. Anyhow I still have to snow blow and shovel and deal with the winter with this Bell's palsy while trying to keep it warm. So I literally had to put a towel a certain way and I found this face masks that I could wear along with wearing glasses and not having them fogged up to keep my face warm. So that was a pain in the butt. The Bell's palsy happened all in the first week of September I believe and it lasted until about March. And I had to tape my eye closed put gel in it to help protect it. Oh I forgot during this process somebody mentioned to me about a nonprofit agency through the local hospital here in Portland Maine. And I was extremely lucky to have found them. Because I was able to do an MRI with them, see an ENT and go see an eye doctor to ensure that my I was being damaged then I told me that visine wasn't good for it and I was like oh my God cuz it felt like I was putting acid on my eye with that stuff. And I didn't realize oh my God there's more stuff out there to put on your eye that's healthier. Anyways I was able to finally get health insurance and that's why I was able to go to Mass eye and ear. but I will tell you I still have some after effects and I still have PTSD I still don't feel like I used to look. Which makes me feel like I'm ugly. but you know what I am blessed that I'm able to close my eye and I am blessed that I can actually chew and drink without things drooling and so forth. And I'm able to smile again but wish still I could do it like I used to. I just can so empathize a certain part of what you're going through or went through I should say. My goal in life is try as much as I can in the capacity that I have. People don't really know that I have SLE because you know what if I want to feel sorry for myself I'll do it I don't need somebody else doing that for me. And I don't need somebody else saying oh should you do this or should you do that or this that and the other and put restrictions on me when I know my body. I want to be treated as if I don't have SLE and not felt sorry for. Because that's just not who I am. And thank God for my cat LOL because she made things better for me. But I will say this it is important to go see a professional who knows about this. It is important to keep your face warm. It is important not to massage your face and this that and the other in the beginning because this is where your nerves are we growing. I wish I would have known that a little bit before going to see your nose and throat doctor and the primary that I was seeing was more educated about it. Because maybe my face wouldn't be semi paralyzed. But it is important to know that sometimes it doesn't recover. But I am so excited that you were able to recover from that. And I'm so glad that you shared your story because I don't feel I don't know if I want to say ugly but I don't feel so less not normal. Because I would never want to put anybody through what Bell's palsy put you through mentally. It's a dramatic loss and it's a dramatic heartbreak within yourself. I know it was for me. Because I still feel I said so shame and embarrassment and ugliness from this. And I wish I didn't. I miss my old smile I miss being able to eat like I used to and not feel like a little part of my mouth is dead. And I miss smiling with my eyes both open and not having to be so conscientious of trying to relax my face and the picture not coming out weird. My biggest fear at this point is that it will come back, I will go blind, and I never will walk again. but I have to remind myself not to look at it that way and to look at what I have right now. So thanks for listening and I really enjoyed your RU-vid channel and listening to you guys funny, thoughtful, interesting, humorous, educational and so much more stories. And making me laugh and cry and relate. Have a great day and keep on sharing!

How Horrifying. I pray that you are 100% in no time.

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