Gone Dark
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I’ve been dark for some time now. If you’ve read my past posts about my health here, here or here, you’ll have had a small glimpse into my health struggles. The month of May was spent attempting a new pain treatment that really took me out of life in a lot of ways. Before I dive back into writing for Esse Letters, I would talk about what this time was like for me.
The plan had been for my husband and I to go down and stay with my dad in Florida for the month of May so I could get a round of six ketamine infusions over the month. Let me give a small explanation: ketamine is a heavy anesthetic, and a horse tranquilizer. In recent years, low dose ketamine infusions have been used in alternative medicine to treat anxiety, depression, and pain. There were no guarantees, I knew that going in, but I had a chance at a three-fer; I thought it was worth it. I’d tried everything else and my doctors thought it would be a good next step, so we requested the permission to leave the immediate area from the disability group and headed south.
The infusions start out small and progressively get higher in dose each time. Since I was there for both anxiety/depression and pain, my infusions were two hours. Going in, I really didn’t know what to expect. I tried to do some reading of what the treatments were like, but I quickly learned they weren’t written by people who’d had the infusions. My plan was to have music playing and try to journal how I felt through the infusion. Well, the music happened.
Quick side note here: I wasn’t much of an experimenter/rebel growing up. I didn’t have a drink until college and the closest I came to a recreational drug was secondhand smoke of some folks smoking a joint. Sure, through my health issues, I’ve been dosed in hospitals: Morphine, Percocet and all those other fun drugs doctors give when you’re in pain at the ER or hospital. None of that prepared me for what these infusions felt like.
I don’t have anything in my life to compare it to, but each time as I came out of it, my first thought was always — and this is really, really weird — Charlie Manson and the whole psychedelic time. I don’t know why Manson is the face/name I associate with that, but we’ve started to establish I’m cracked in the head so, we’ll just go with it.
What I mostly remember is floating, colors and shapes, usually ones that would go along with whatever song was playing at the time. I tried to keep the playlist tame to ballads and happy songs. As I woke up, my dad or husband was sitting there in the dark with me. They would help me drink and eat a little and walk me to the car where I passed out for the drive back.
Now, I had a lot of high hopes and plans for the month. Like crossing into Florida, the air would be curative, and I would be able to do more than I could here than home and made all these plans to exercise in the pools and what not. Even without the infusions that didn’t happen, but then you add on that the sedative effects from the infusions seemed to build and basically my month-long Florida vacation involved a lot of sleeping.
We got home, and I spent a week sleeping, recovering and adjusting back to being home. This week has been getting my life caught up, and a direction figured out. I had such high hopes for these infusions and what aid they gave me is gone already if it lasted past that day. To say I’m disappointed is, well, kind of like describing 2020s “quarantine” as an extended staycation. I think it added to my first week of issues.
I sit here and look back at all the things I’ve tried for my back to relieve the pain over just the past 17 years. Surgeries, drugs, exercises, gadgets, pokes, prods, and injections. There really isn’t much left out there and as I get older, I wonder how much will doctors be willing to do when I may not have as many years for them to affect left. I go into summer very down, frustrated and lost. And for the record, I WILL NOT try yoga AGAIN. The last time caused the blood clot that put me where I am now, so all you yogis out there, been there, tried it, made things worse, book is on the shelf. What I would like to try is water walking if I could stay awake long enough and find a place.
I’m barely keeping my eyes open, so my morning 4 hours are up. I hope to be posting more often, I will as much as I can, I will promise that much.
