Surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest with Lauren Canaday

Lauren Canaday has lived quite a life. Two lives, if you ask her. In her memoir, Independence Ave: How Individualism Killed Me and Community Brought Me Back, Lauren recounts her dating life and career from statician to hair stylist to hair industry executive. Then the moment that changed everything -- Lauren suffered sudden cardiac arrest and didn't have a heartbeat for 24 minutes. By her husband's quick action and one fierce EMT, she survived, and was miraculously declared cognitively intact. In our converation, Lauren talks about how her endless pursuit for independence was turned upside down by this near death experience. She shares about the long and brutal road to recovery and how she's yet again rebuilding life to meet her reality.

You can find Lauren and learn more about her work at https://laurencanaday.substack.com/

Transcript:

Sarah Cavanaugh: [00:00:00] I am Sarah Cavanaugh, and this is Peaceful Exit, the podcast where we talk to creatives about life and death.

My guest today is Lauren Canaday, and her memoir is Independence Ave: How Individualism Killed Me and Community Brought Me Back. Lauren's story is so remarkable. She experienced sudden cardiac arrest. She didn't have a heartbeat for 24 minutes and survived. In our conversation, Lauren shares more about her life leading up to that moment and what recovery has been like after being declared.

Amazingly cognitively intact. We also tease apart this very American ideal that is independence, when it serves us and when it does not.[00:01:00] 

Well, welcome to Peaceful Exit. Hi, I was so excited to meet you.

Lauren Canaday: Thank you so much.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Well, you've lived quite a life and I love your career because it really is, you know, it's a career of connections and changes and transitions, and I also love in your book how you connect your childhood and early adulthood to your drive for independence and autonomy.

Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about that? Drive.

Lauren Canaday: Oh yeah. I mean I had a role model for, for that drive and my father for sure. My parents were pretty poor when I was born. They had married against the wishes of their family, so they didn't have a lot of support and they had to work. Um, my father was in, in school still when I was born, so luckily they were educated.

They had that opportunity and I really watched my, my parents grow up and my father become actually, you know, quite [00:02:00] well to do. And so he sort of represented like the American dream and, you know, this meritocracy that we, that we live in, he would this embodiment of that just right there in my everyday awareness and.

I think being his successfully inspired me to want a lot of the same, like worldly, you know, outward status and comfort and all these things. It felt like it was something that was within my graph and up to me to go out and get, uh, at first. And I'll say too, that just, I watched them get divorced when I was 17.

That's book. And that was very hard and I think was the final push of like, all right, well I've seen. Some models, and now it's up to me to decide what my life's gonna become. And so I felt strongly about, you know, securing my financial future and I was just responsible to a fault and really no fun. [00:03:00] 

Sarah Cavanaugh: Oh, I doubt that.

I doubt that. But we're all socialized in this country for independence, so, yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm really curious about how your childhood taught you to ignore your body cues. Mm-hmm.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, well, I, I, my parents did a lot of great things. I do, um, feel that the way they treated emotion, I think just to get through the day, like their days were hard.

They had three kids. They were juggling a lot. And so yeah, there was not a lot of encouragement of expression in some ways. And so. The no whining button that was, you know, one of those little pins my father got at like a rest stop I think on a car trip. So he did a lot of driving around in the car on weekends.

I was whining, I tended to get car sick and he like put that button on my shirt and they had a good laugh and it was really, you know, I'm sure they didn't intend for it to me [00:04:00] this way.

If this is how my, it just, it didn't seem that my emotions and expressing them were really, that wasn't gonna get me closeness with others. It wasn't gonna get me what I want. Wasn't gonna get me outta that car. Um, so I kind of learned to try to rise above the situation, which at the time as a coping mechanism meant, and keeping things to myself listening, music tuning out as opposed to tuning in.

Um, but meanwhile, you know, I. They hypersensitive to sometimes when your own emotions aren't allowed to really flourish and come out, you, you tend to become very cautious of then other people's emotions. Like you, you can tell yours aren't steering where things are headed, so you kind of turn outward. So, you know, both of those things were happening at the same time.

I was becoming very observant, but very quiet with my own drive.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. [00:05:00] Well that resonates with me as well, and you get lost in your head and your imagination, you know? Yes. Which is why you, which, why you love writing.

Lauren Canaday: Yes. Probably. I did so much reading that Poeo was inevitable at some point that I

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah.

You were living living in those, living in those worlds. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. I'm, I love words and I language, and I talk a lot about that in this podcast. And I'm curious about your use of independence versus dependence. When talking about community, often used the word interdependence. How did you choose that language?

Or just did it just come. Up for you. And do you think the words dependence and interdependences are interchangeable?

Lauren Canaday: Well start at the end. I don't think they're interchangeable. I think they're getting at slightly different ideas. I, I think one in our culture definitely has a negative connotation.

Dependence has a little bit of a negative connotation in most contexts. You know, and it makes us think maybe as codependence and like, that's a [00:06:00] bad word. Independence is like you're, you can take care of yourself. You've got it. It's up to you dependent being, you know, like you require help from others.

And then in interdependence is kind of this idea, I don't have the exact definition for me, but it's like. A little bit of both. Like you're, you're helping other people. They're helping you. It's kind of a, a mutually beneficial situation. Um, so I, before I was diagnosed with epilepsy, so up to age 34, um, yeah, independence was my jam.

I don't, I don't think I would've, and if I were talking about dependence, I would've used the word interdependence for sure. I definitely never used the word in relation to my thought. Things changed when. I started having a lot of health crises, um, and. [00:07:00] Where I was so dependent on other people. I mean, there's really just no other way to look at at it, even biologically and on every level, like I was just completely dependent on others to fight for my life.

I had absolutely no goal in it. I was truly dead to the world, literally for a few minutes. And so, you know, even in recovery after that, having had these experiences of where my body's at control, I'm having a seizure or dropping dead, like. Had a role in my lifestyle. Not that I'm constantly dependent on everyone, for everything, but uh, that word and, and the full weight of it has a place in my life for sure.

Sarah Cavanaugh: I love your distinction actually, and that makes so much sense. When you have medical crises, we are dependent, um, for our survival. Yeah. Yeah. So. A little bit of history. You went to college, studied statistics. I like, I like how you wrote about, I actually started as [00:08:00] a math major. Did you really? Oh wow.

Lauren Canaday: That's so

Sarah Cavanaugh: cool there. I ended up as an eng. I ended up as an English major. I, I, I like to, uh, study everything, so I couldn't decide.

Lauren Canaday: I really did that.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. And then you made a big pivot to big hair, as you say. And how did you go from being a statistician to. Being a hairstylist.

Lauren Canaday: Well, I, I wasn't happy that decision.

That was a rough year and I knew pretty quickly like it was gonna be if you made tough, tough road, if I kept going.

Not fun. And I was, I was like wasting away emotionally and spiritually or something. Meanwhile, my father remarried and he married a hair, a hairstylist, a hair designer as she, she would say, and she had worked at the same company for quite a while, like over a decade as she had. And I think getting to know her and seeing what her world was like and her career, [00:09:00] lifestyle, it opened up this door and then that show what not to wear.

I was sort of obsessed at that one. One summer and like summer, just seeing the fact that everyone would start crying when they got to the hair fade. Like, you know, they could get different outfits on and it was, it was interesting, whatever. They were like, okay, I'm changing whatever. Then they got to the hair scene.

A lot of times people just break down. It was so personal and the hairstylist was able to just really hone in on like, what's motivating you? Like, where do you wanna go with your life? How can we bring this? This inner thing and like put it on. So that when other people interact with you, your image speaks to what you really wanna say.

And it was so powerful to watch that show and see, see hair done. Well that just intrigued me. And then I was sort of at least end because my ex-husband was getting deployed and so I had to move [00:10:00] anyway, I was, I was up, you know, upheaval again and decided this is a as good a chance as any, I might as well just try this thing.

So I, I started just getting my hands dirty and, and wasn't an intern, you know, just, just started doing, you can kind of get classes for free in some states if you work for the salon. So I tried that. I fell in love with it, and I just, just like, grew really fast. So I, I, yeah. Even when I got started, like day one, I don't think you could have told me where it would go.

I thought I might just be biding time. I figured out what my next noob was, but it stuck for about 12 years.

Sarah Cavanaugh: You collected so much wisdom working with hundreds of female clients, including this one piece that really resonates with me. If you mind if I read it. Go, go ahead. Just a quick quote. Whatever compartmentalization we front to the world, the main joys and griefs of our lives are thoroughly entangled in the jungles of our hearts.

Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] Do you still feel that holds true?

Lauren Canaday: I do. I do. And actually, interestingly, I wrote that when I was still doing hair before I was diagnosed with epilepsy, before I started writing. For real. I mean, that was just something I, I wrote down in my journal and it, it's, it still ring true to me. Consulting go. Other organizations like I saw it there too.

I mean, just the way that people try to try to keep, you know, different lanes, different parts of life. But I think ultimately we have to, we have to bring it all together. Like something's gonna force us to get clarity on what matters most. And all the stuff and the other compartments that aren't serving that they're, they're gonna fall away or be [00:12:00] affected.

Sarah Cavanaugh: I wonder too, like as you grew up, without the freedom to express your emotions, that, that actually dev develops those lanes of com 'cause you have to compartmentalize if you have mm-hmm. A strong emotion about something, you kind of have to put it in a, in a box on the shelf. And so there's a compartment, you know, and then you're going along with your.

Professional life, but something's happening in your personal life. Well, I can't bring that into the professional life 'cause I have to be successful and productive and you know, that, that, that actually you end up being very good at compartmentalizing because you were unable to, to pull those things together.

Lauren Canaday: Well, and I had a lot of romantic relationship trouble soon after writing that. And yeah. I mean, so yes, a hundred percent. And this is, that was, that was very astute, by the way. And I, I just have to laugh. I always learn stuff, um, with interviews like this, with, I mean, yeah. [00:13:00] Anyway, I, I always, I always learn and it's so interesting what.

What you just said, because I, I, you know, I have had therapists and everything. No one put it quite like that, but, but you're right. When you have to compartmentalize and not, not show one emotion, it, it comes out somewhere

Sarah Cavanaugh: always. And you know, it really, I'm much older than you, but it really struck me that you can't shut off one emotion without shutting them all off.

Yeah. And so you really have to exist in that compartment where that compartment, where you're separate from. What you know, your intuition, your emotion, you know, I so appreciated how candidly you wrote about your divorce and your failed relationships, your realization that you didn't wanna have kids, the emotional cost of moving around so much.

That's a lot of processing, and I was wondering if writing this book was cathartic for you.

Lauren Canaday: Absolutely. Yeah. It was definitely healing for me to write the book. [00:14:00] I, I kind of had no choice, like it was beyond healing it, like required for continued distance because it just, like I said earlier, I mean, it poured out of me.

I couldn't stop writing it. Um, I wanted to sometime, to be honest. I, and I definitely, definitely didn't wanna publish it many times. Um, still now, like I, every time, you know, an. An opportunity to speak about it up or whatever. I always, I'm a little Swedish, but, um, but writing it was essential to my survival.

Yeah. I think just looking back and, and making it into a story like, so it's not just random events that happened. Um, and I, you know, I get to make meaning of it. It, I don't get to decide what happens to me. But by not just writing the book, but I, even if I had to post just, you know, writing these things in my journal even is a step, um, of making sense of it [00:15:00] and deciding what to make, what to do about what I was given to work with.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. You have control over your reaction to what you were given. Mm-hmm. Yeah. For certain. So at 34 you started having seizures and were was diagnosed with epilepsy. That put a wrench in things, I would imagine.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, you could say that. What was it like being forced to slow down? I had this distinct memory of it a day soon after the seizures started.

I actually, I hadn't been diagnosed yet, but I knew it was bad and. I felt like I would imagine a, an animal of prey would feel like in the forest, like you're just wandering around, like something really scary is out there. And my nervous system went into freeze mode. I mean, slowing down later when I felt a little better was hard.

But at first it was just natural. It was just [00:16:00] my body was like, okay, something's big. Something big is happening and we just. I, this is not even a question. So I became very still, I like trad silence. I had these really long commutes for a while until I could sort out living situation with the fact that I couldn't drive and I was on public transportation a lot.

And when I had, you know, I was just sitting there for hours and I had my headphones on. I did a lot of just like sitting and staring, which was so not my MO before that.

Sarah Cavanaugh: How would you describe epilepsy

Lauren Canaday: as like a, a

Sarah Cavanaugh: definition overall or? Yeah, or for me both. Like a scientifically, what is it and how would you describe it?

Lauren Canaday: Seizures, um, can happen. If there's abnormal discharges in the brain, so like an electrical spike, it actually, a lot of times people assume that things go haywire and are all disorganized. It's actually [00:17:00] everything fires at once. It's a very, like everything goes at the same time, which isn't how it's supposed to work.

It's it's visible on an e, EG, but really the defaults because there's a reasons that a person might have a seizure, and it doesn't necessarily mean. That they have one of the known syndrome. So if, if you have unexplained lack of consciousness or other, there's actually other types that aren't, that are aware.

So you, you don't necessarily pass out from mime. I pass out, I can both look like the whole nine yards, but people. Stick a lot more subtle. Like they might just pause and stare, but if you have these things and, and you can't attribute it to anything else, and they, they try, you know, looking for a disease or a tumor or like all different things, your heart, they, they can't sign another cause.

Then you may get tagged with this epilepsy diagnosis. So ultimately, what does it [00:18:00] case? Um, what's historically, what's called grand mal seizures, it, it's probably what people picture.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Well, given your independence and obviously you, you knew how to do your hair and you looked well and was it hard to imagine yourself on the ground convulsing?

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. Yeah. I have seen myself have. Fo what, what we thought were focal aware seizures. Um, but they weren't, I, I wasn't passing out, but I had trouble like moving and speaking. I have seen a couple of those that, that's weird enough, but I, I can't imagine. I mean, yeah. And my, my first seizure looked so public.

Um. There were, you know, over a dozen witnesses. And so I never had the chance to like, think about keeping it a secret. It it, it was brought to my attention by others. So like I, [00:19:00] it's weird, but it's also, it's just still outside of my control. It

Sarah Cavanaugh: must be humbling.

Lauren Canaday: Very, yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Were you lonely? I mean, you were navigating this new life, but.

Did it feel lonely?

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, it also did. Um, sometimes I made connections through it, um, in terms of joining support groups and, and, um, I had some really great doctors along the way, you know. Um, but it also took a toll on a lot of my existing relationships. One of the things that shocked me was how much it impacted my social life to not drink, because once I was on the seizure medication, I couldn't drink with it.

And so I just, you know, cut out drinking. And when I first did, I, I didn't take much of it, but very quickly I found that, you know, I wasn't invited around as much.

I started noticing everyone around me was drinking all the time. Hadn't really noticed it before, but once, once I couldn't, it became a bigger [00:20:00] deal and that, yeah, I mean, I had been the girlfriend who, you know, you come over, I make you a cocktail. And I wasn't, I wouldn't say I was a heavy drinker, at least not for someone in their thirties and.

DC at that time, but it was, it was definitely a part of life as it disappeared and, and my social life kind of went with it. And then on top of that, I was having to go to sleep early. It got overstimulated really quickly. I don't know if that was epilepsy or the med. You know, there are a lot of reasons that I kind of, I think it was partly other people not knowing what to say or not knowing how to be there for me with the bizarre.

All of a sudden and, and partly me backing away from things that I used to enjoy because my niece had suddenly changed overnight. So, so that, that made it, that made it lonely sometimes. And of course, stigma. I had a few instances of people, you know, more overtly saying like. [00:21:00] I don't wanna deal with this deal.

So there's a coworker who, who, it's always logged in my memory of how she literally said she would run away in the other direction if I had a seizure. This is someone you know, I'd worked with closely for years at that point. And it just kind of made me realize that I was now in some different class of person, like I was not.

The, the person I used to be, I had a totally different status. Now I was some scary disabled person. I was a liability. They were afraid. Yeah. And it was gonna change. It was gonna change how I interacted in some, some cases. So.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah, that makes sense. So how much time between your epilepsy diagnosis and your sudden cardiac arrest?

Lauren Canaday: There were four and a half years.

Sarah Cavanaugh: So you were dealing with epilepsy for a long time before that happened? Mm-hmm.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. And I, I well made, yeah, almost five years. Yeah. So I'd kind of changed my whole life around epilepsy and. I thought, you know, this is my cross to bear. And I was all like, oh, woe is me, epilepsy, and like, [00:22:00] I didn't even know.

I didn't even know

Sarah Cavanaugh: it was coming. Well, you got a dog, a husband, you left DC from Virginia. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You're had a lot of bright spots.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. It it, that's the thing I started to kind of figure out how can I make a life that I want? It's not the life I had chosen before it. I have different needs, but I, I met those needs and I, I mean, I think, although already Independence had taken a hit, right.

But, but there was an independent injured. The fact that I was able to find a way forward and ask for what I needed and you know, a, uh, surround myself with people who could be there for me, even if those were sometimes different people than they used to be. And, and, yeah, I got my dog and trained him to help me with it allowed me to feel a lot safer, like going into the woods and hiking and.

So, yeah, I, I changed my career. I went back to [00:23:00] working for the federal government and I successfully made like all, all those changes and was kind of starting to get comfy.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a moment when your life changed and you, and you call this your second life. You were working at your desk at home. Then what happened?

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. Uh, I don't know. So the next thing I'll tell you, so the next thing that happened for me was I was in a lot of pain and I couldn't stand up and surgery happened.

What? Someone was trying to stand me in front of an x-ray machine, but I fell down. The next thing I know, which wasn't right after, so I don't know what happened in between. I was in bed and in a lot of pain and it, it started making me shake like it was so painful. I don't think it was a seizure. I think I just, I.

Like started shaking from pain [00:24:00] and a nurse came over and I think gave me med 'cause then I go black again and then my brother went there and then I was at home like that. That's what happened in my world. Um, but I have been told that I said, oh shit. And appropriate words. Yeah. My husband, I.

To say that, but when my husband heard me fall, he was right across the hall, which is the luckiest thing ever. And he heard me fall. He was already kind of on high alert because I'd had one seizure a week before, and I, that was the first I'd had since I'd known him. It, it was the first seizure in four and a half years.

Um, so I, my med did worked well, so we were already kind of on edge, which is maybe why he was paying attention, but he, he runs in having a seizure on the floor. Something that's not supposed to happen with normal seizures. I started turning blue, so he called 9 1 1 [00:25:00] started DPR. We live very quote to the fire station.

Um, and it actually has a, a really loud siren. It's old school, a small town, and so they sound it this blaring siren every time the truck leave, which happened more than Utah sake for such a small town. But he had always hated on this. Siren. And now I'm, he does not complain. And we call it like the sound of life, you know?

But, but yeah, they, they got to my house in four minutes. Wow. And the EMTs took over a female EMT who walked in the room, saw me line there, and she's about my same age. Um, I talked to her a bunch now. But she just said, no, not today. Like she's not dying on, and she was relentless. I mean, she just. She thought to get me on a helicopter to get me where I needed to go.

Like, I don't know all the ins and outs, but she, [00:26:00] she is widely credited as like she put her foot down and they did the life saving techniques long after they, I mean, it kind of surprised because it was 24 minutes that I didn't have a heartbeat. And I've read the report, like the full report, they.

Terrible day, and like they shocked me four times, but I wasn't coming back and my heart went into like usually one of the final stages. So a lot of times people think you just immediately flat, not flatline, but actually your heart usually. And I had beat that or the cat, I, I forget what it's called, but my, your heart.

My heart started going really fast and it had no very erratic. So my heart went into what's called PEA or pulseless electrical activity, which is. Usually a bad sign. I mean, you can't shock anymore. It's not gonna do anything. And, and they continued to give me air [00:27:00] through whatever, CPR or, um, whatever advanced techniques they have.

So my brain was getting oxygen the whole time, and that's why I'm talking to you right now because the CPR was started so quickly by my husband. They got there so quickly and were, we're doing that the whole time that my heart was. Then, you know, from there it was just like craziness trying to get me to a trauma center.

We live in a rural area, so it involved a helicopter ride, and I was in coma for two days. They did the, the therapeutic hypothermia at the trauma center, which is I, I found fascinating to learn about. But, but they lower your body temperature so that when your, your heart's beating again, you can. Come back to life little more slowly.

It doesn't overwhelm your system as much. So there are fewer long-term impacts. But even for those two days, my husband was told, you know, to, she's probably not coming back. And I, I don't think anyone, no one was expecting me to come back, but especially [00:28:00] to leave as they termed it in the notes neurologically intact was a shocker.

But I left the surgery that I remember that was the defibrillator. Being implant. I don't remember signing for it. Apparently I did, but I, yeah, my husband felt strongly that I not leave without it and, um, and then like got, got pretty strange for a while.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. It sounds like without that EMT really being your advocate, they could have declared you dead at any point in those 24 minutes.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. I, I think though there's even a, a, an odd point in the report where it just says, you know, they'd done the fourth attempt as a shock and it just, it kept saying resuscitation efforts continue, which I guess means the CPR or whatever, and, and then there's like nothing happened for two minutes and they're like, resuscitation continue.

They're like, why? And it said, you know, PEA was [00:29:00] so my heart was in that final state in it. Then they just said, continue. You could just see where like. They didn't even know what to do anymore, but they just wouldn't stop.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Well, CPR can be kind of brutal. Violent even. Yeah, I was shocked. Didn't have like

Lauren Canaday: broken ribs or anything after because you hear about that.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Yeah. But you mentioned an injury from intubation.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, the, yep. They had the tube in and I, I mean, I don't remember that part, but, or even when they took it out. But I guess for a while I couldn't swallow like. I think they have to jam it in pretty quick. Um, what, it did something on the way out or whatever, and I, I kept failing swallow tests, so they, they couldn't gimme food for a while.

I had to just have like juice and like mash stuff. And then I graduated to like. I was drinking out of it straw for, I can't remember, at least a month after leaving the ICUI was, I just couldn't swallow properly. So like I would choke if I [00:30:00] tried and my vocal cords were, were wrecked too for a while. I'm so glad I can, I can speak now.

I don't think about that enough. I take it for granted. Again, mental note to, to really feel the gratitude about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Cavanaugh: So all this intervention in your. Dying process. It brings up a question about consent. If you are unconscious or in a coma, what is consent to you?

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, I, I don't think I get to, I mean, at that point, as far as I am concerned, I live in a society.

I also have a family and my husbands and my father were there by my side. And you know, a lot of the decisions at that point were made by my husband, which I think is as it should be. At times. At times I've wondered if I really want this defibrillator in my body, and eventually I'll get to decide whether I take it out or not.

But at the time, you know, he had to deal [00:31:00] with so much. I, you know, we're talking about me and my experience, but like the PTSD from having to try to save your spouse. Think you're watching your spouse die in your arms, like, like the days and the, I. So, yeah, consent would be nice, but I was in no condition. I mean, at that point my life was up to other people.

If I had already been through something like this and, and had a DNR and my doctor, I knew about it. Well, that's, that's different. But I didn't, and I mean, people, people wanted to fight from that EMT to all the doctors that. You know, were incredible at what they did clearly. And my husband, do you have a DNR now?

So ki so I do, but I haven't actually given it to my doctor. So, and my husband and I are in talk because he is not happy about it. And [00:32:00] I, I have nick feeling, and I guess where I keep coming back to, it's like, look, if I am unconscious, I want it to be easy for him to do. What he needs to do. He knows I don't wanna be a vegetable and I don't wanna go through, you know, a much worse, like, I got so lucky in this situation and it was so really hard.

So there's a limit to how much more I would wanna go through because I, I don't, yeah, it was, it was hard enough and I can just imagine now like how easily it could have gone so much worse.

Sarah Cavanaugh: So you wrote your book shortly after you almost died, which understanding just how debilitated you probably were.

Mm-hmm. It makes it even more impressive. Uh, you're a little further away from that experience now. Has your perspective shifted at all

Lauren Canaday: a little bit. I, I agree with everything I said at the time. It was important to me to write it. [00:33:00] At that moment while I was still struggling, I wanted to not shy away from sharing the rock bottom that I hit after the cardiac arrest.

That's, that felt really important and I'm so glad that I did it. I'm not in a dark place right now. I have, after publishing even, I started seeing some real recovery physically, which has been awesome. And emotionally, like the PTs D is just so much less than even a year ago. And so as I continue to recover and then I start to re-acclimate and like decide who I'm gonna be in a second life, it's not as terrible and.

That once was, and like I'm, I'm back in school now. I'm, I'm doing MS and clinical mental health counseling and I'm hoping to become a, become a therapist working with other people with chronic illness. So I think I, as far as meaning making, like I can see the positives and how this can [00:34:00] help me, help others, how it can play into a much better story.

But when I wrote the book, I didn't know what the next, what the second life was really gonna. And I was really feeling the mortality and the vulnerability. And so, you know, that's more what the, that book is about. And I'll have to write another one here when, when things are brighter and I, I do hope they write at, at some point about like recovery and, um, what that means.

If you have something like I do where you don't, you don't ever get cured medically. Um.

Sarah Cavanaugh: I look forward to reading it, but I, I do see a through line in your life and you're almost already a therapist because you've had so much time with people in the hairstylist chair.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah, I, that was the best training. I mean, honestly, I think people [00:35:00] might look at my career path and think, oh, the consulting or the group facilitation and like that stuff, that was helpful, but.

Actually the one-on-one, you know, the client conversation, just listening to people's stories all day. I mean, yeah, I, I'm just glad I'm finally getting the training, so I'll be, I'll be able to, you know, do a better job of listening and helping because before, I mean, I could listen, but. There wasn't much I could do.

Yeah.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Um, we briefly mentioned your husband earlier, and in the context of building your life together, you wrote that you found more independence because you had the safety and security of dependence.

Lauren Canaday: Mm. Yeah.

Sarah Cavanaugh: That's a full circle moment.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. I don't know. It gets pretty philosophical, right? Because I guess in a sense I was maybe, I mean, we're all dependent in so many ways.

I guess if I didn't have him, there would [00:36:00] be other things I'd have to depend on just to get to get by. But I mean, I guess without him in that scenario, I just would be dead. But yeah, he, yeah. I don't even know. I mean,

sorry. I just like started going 10 different directions in my head. Thinking about Chris. He just, he's such a monumental. Person in my life,

everything would be different without him having entered that random way that he did. Well,

Sarah Cavanaugh: there may be no words. Yeah, there may be no language for what you're feeling right now. Mm-hmm. And, uh. So are you exploring religion and what's that journey look like?

Lauren Canaday: I, yeah. I've been going to some Quaker meetings in my town before that I, she's no longer at the church.

She retired, but there is a really awesome, awesome pastor at my local Episcopal [00:37:00] church. I really, I like the Episcopal Episcopal church too, but I just kind of drifted over for right now. I have actually always done pretty interested in religion and I've definitely sampled. Throughout my life and kind of worked my way around.

I, yeah, so I, I guess I, I would say now that I have a sort of faith, and I would say that I pray, but I, yeah, I, I get my beliefs are a little more amorphous and less prescriptive than a lot of organized religion, which is I think, why I feel at home when I'm medicating with the Quakers and sitting in silence.

I, I often feel like the words can be helpful and I definitely like praying with other people, but I sometimes I feel like the words can also get in the way, and sitting in silence is kind of my way to, we attach to that moment where I. Or I guess 24 minutes or whatever, where I [00:38:00] was in a sort of peaceful other place.

My association with that time is peaceful. When I'm really struggling, I go to the spot on the floor where I had the cardiac arrest, so they clearly mean something to me, even though I don't remember any specifics about it. And for some reason, like meditation and, and sitting quietly seems to be the closest way for me to kind of reattach to that feeling of connection, loss of self, that.

My cardiac rest

Sarah Cavanaugh: connection to spirit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. There was something very special about the time you were down for 24 minutes and it wasn't, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel that some people describe in an NDE, but it was certainly something you're going back to now. Mm-hmm.

Lauren Canaday: Yeah. Yes, it.

Very comforting, I guess is the right way to describe it. And that's why I seek out that spot when I'm [00:39:00] struggling. You know, for me, like the PPD and the trauma was all about what happened after I woke up. Waking up in that hospital was scary. The realizing that everything was wrong with me was scary. Like I only have this positive feeling when I'm in that room, or, and I, I didn't feel light or.

See a loved one who'd already passed or anything like that, but I, I kind of feel like I dissolved and there's something very freeing. Like we, you know, independence is like the whole first half of my life and that it kind of exhausting, you know, and it suddenly feel like there's no boundary between you and everything else because.

You're on your way out and your cells are gonna rejoin the, the world. And it's not gonna be, you know, your carbon isn't gonna be embodied in this one form, but there's, there's a release and a freedom and I felt welcomed. So I can't explain that. I [00:40:00] can't justify it, but I definitely don't fear to us after that.

Sarah Cavanaugh: We'll wrap today and I'd just like to ask you, what does a peaceful exit mean to you?

Lauren Canaday: So I love the question, and I thought about it a lot knowing that I'd be on here, and it really depends, like, whose perspective am I thinking about it from? Because I, I had a peaceful beginning of the exit, I guess before I would've really brought back.

I'm very grateful, but still I, that would've been a peaceful exit, right? I didn't even know it was gonna happen. There was no time. For warning and and anxiety. I was not in pain. I was just gone and I just became not me as you know, me now, but me, part of the universe. That was great. That was not peaceful from my husband's perspective.

I mean, he saw me and absolute distress. My whole body just completely sounding the alarm. It's a gro. [00:41:00] To shut down that way. So the, the people who were trying to save me, the doctors that would not have been peaceful for them had I, had, I died that way. So, and I think you have to keep that in mind because I'm, I'm me, but I don't only matter to me.

Right. I, I, you have to kind of look at it from all different perspectives. It's not only about the person dying, it's also. And the community they live in.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Beautifully said, I loved our conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This has been great. I learned a lot.

Lauren Canaday: I.

Sarah Cavanaugh: It

Lauren Canaday: really made me think

Sarah Cavanaugh: well take good care.

Lauren Canaday: You too.

Sarah Cavanaugh: Thank you for listening to Peaceful Exit. I'm your host, Sarah Cavanaugh. You can find me on Instagram at @APeacefulExit. And you can learn more about this podcast at peacefulexit.net. Our senior producer and editor is Katy Klein. Our sound engineer is Shawn Simmons. Additional support from Cindy Gal and Ciara Austin.

Original music provided by Ricardo Russell, with additional music and sounds from Blue Dot Sessions. If you'd like to support our show, please follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, rate and review us wherever you listen. It really does make a difference. And as always, thank you so much for listening.