BLOOMINGTON - When her depression was at its worst, Julie Dennis didn't shower for months. "I fed the cats and that's it," she admitted recently in her Bloomington apartment. "I couldn't concentrate or focus. I just existed. I ate and slept. I'd turn on the TV and stare at the Weather Channel.

"I had been very independent."

Dennis, 41, has treatment-resistant depression, meaning her depression is so severe that she hadn't gotten consistent benefit from medicine that is more successful treating people with mild to moderate depression.

From 1988 to fall 2006, even though she was employed most of that time and was in therapy, Dennis was admitted to hospital mental health units 13 times, had 16 emergency department visits, 37 electroconvulsive therapy treatments, and attempted suicide twice.

"I have quite a medical record at BroMenn" Regional Medical Center in Normal, she said.

But earlier this month, Dennis was joking with her psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Hamilton, and discussing her goals, including returning to full-time employment and home ownership, expanding her art hobby, and becoming a mental health advocate.

The major difference in her life is VNS (vagus nerve stimulation) therapy, an FDA-approved, long-term treatment for people with recurrent depression who haven't responded adequately to four or more antidepressant drug treatments.

Dennis and Hamilton believe the nerve stimulation to the brain that Dennis is receiving is lessening the severity and duration of her depressive episodes and allowing her to successfully use depression-fighting strategies she has learned in 19 years of psychotherapy (counseling).

"VNS is working so well, it's hard to think back to how it was," Dennis said as she petted her cat, Harry. "I'm learning how it feels to be well.

"I was depressed for 35 years," she continued. "I used to get freaked out if I had a good day. I'd sabotage myself into feeling depressed."

But Dennis warned, "It sounds like a miracle cure but it's not. After 19 years of therapy, I've learned a lot of tools and now I'm using them."

VNS Therapy, according to manufacturer Cyberonics Inc., consists of an implanted pacemaker-like device that delivers mild, intermittently pulsed signals to the patient's left vagus nerve, which then activates areas of the brain responsible for mood, motivation, sleep and appetite.

Several psychiatrists in the Bloomington-Normal area have begun recommending VNS therapy to patients with treatment-resistant depression.

Hamilton, for example, has two patients on VNS and both have made progress. He is discussing VNS with three other patients and figures another 10 to 20 could benefit from the therapy.

Hamilton's two patients chose to have their electrical stimulus generators implanted by a surgeon in Peoria. But Dr. Emilio Nardone, a neurosurgeon with Central Illinois Neuro Health Sciences in Bloomington, has performed several outpatient implant procedures this year at BroMenn, said BroMenn spokesman Eric Alvin.

No implants have been performed yet at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, said spokeswoman Katy O'Grady-Pyne.

"She's clearly better, but she's not as well as I hope she'll get or as well as she hopes she'll get," Hamilton said of Dennis.

Dennis knows it will take awhile for her to control her depression to the point that she can return to work, travel and do other things she enjoys.

Her parents, Tom and Cathy Dennis, died in a plane crash on Jan. 9, 1972, just a few days before her sixth birthday. She was the fifth of seven children living in a small house in Shirley.

"For a 5- to 6-year-old to not see her mom and dad again, that's hard to comprehend," she said.

Within a week, the seven Dennis children were divided among various aunts and uncles, who raised them.

"I remember crying because we were going separate ways and I didn't understand why," she said. She and her younger sister went to live with an aunt and uncle and their sons in Champaign-Urbana.

"We rarely saw each other growing up," she said of the seven siblings. "Because of what happened to us in our childhood, we don't know how to relate to each other 35 years later."

Dennis said she felt like an outsider in her aunt and uncle's family.

She experienced additional traumas during her childhood and teen years, but declined to discuss them. As when her parents died, she received no professional psychological help.

In March 1988, during her senior year at Western Illinois University, she recognized that she had psychological problems that needed to be addressed as she ventured out into the work world. She began seeing a therapist in Chicago after beginning work in information technology for a company in suburban Schaumburg.

Dennis was diagnosed with depression, an illness characterized by lack of interest in things usually enjoyed, loss of energy, changes in sleep patterns, changes in appetite and weight, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, difficulty concentrating, and thoughts of death and suicide.

She was able to work, although it wasn't easy. Her therapist combined psychotherapy with antidepressant medication.

"I've tried dozens and dozens of medicines and combinations since 1991," Dennis said.

In 1994, she returned to Bloomington-Normal for a job with State Farm Insurance Cos.

At first, she appeared to have things under control. She won several job performance awards, bought a house and a new car.

About 1998, her depression worsened. She doesn't know why. By February 2001, she had missed so much work at State Farm that she was fired. She lost her house and her car, filed for bankruptcy and moved in with her younger sister.

Even electroconvulsive treatment would give her only temporary relief.

"I thought my life was just falling apart," she recalled. "I would shut down. I would feed the cats and myself once a day, hide in my bed and not take phone calls."

In 2004, Dennis began to come out of the hard-core depression. She thinks the right combination of counseling, medicines and electroconvulsive treatment finally took effect. She realized she needed to put less stress on herself about returning to work and to focus first on taking care of herself and getting well.

In 2005, she moved into her apartment. When Hamilton described VNS to her, she was skeptical, but when Medicare approved covering the treatment - which costs about $25,000, according to Cyberonics - she decided to go ahead.

The same-day surgery was done last August. Because VNS is long-term treatment, she didn't expect immediate results.

By mid-November, other people, including her doctors, told her she appeared happier and more confident. In February, she began to keep a log and noted that she experienced no depression for half of the days in February and for two-thirds of the days in March. When she did experience depression, the episodes were less severe and lasted two or three days rather than weeks or months.

"The depression is not immobilizing me," she said. When she begins to get depressed, she uses strategies, such as distracting herself by washing the dishes, doing research on the Internet or watching the National Geographic Channel.

"I know this (VNS) is not a cure. I will live with depression for the rest of my life," she said.

Hamilton said, "We hope the patients become significantly less depressed and can lead a fuller, more normal life."

Dennis smiled.

"I don't know where all this goodness is going to take me and that's what's exciting."