Ketamine Intervention

Ketamine Intervention

Scared out of my mind
Heart thumping
Chilled to the bone under layers of blankets
In my surgical gown and silly cap
I wait to be knocked out by ketamine
The human-horse tranquillizer
Headed to a “happy place”
A medically induced coma to interrupt incessantly firing nerve networks
Causing me migraines on end
Shutting down continuous pain signals that have outgrown their usefulness
But creating havoc and agony.

I of little faith am afraid.

One minute I was there
The next I’m disintegrating
Reduced to a molecule, an eye
Flung into a white room, square and empty.

Space Odyssey without the music
Residual Me is propelled forward
Hurled into corners of bright nothingness
My frontal cortex is dissociated from my body
No hands to hold on to safety, no legs to stem the fall
Catapulted down a slide
Another white chamber with infinite boundaries
Unlike the mystical bright light at the end of a tunnel.
Is this dying?
No peace and calm but
Howling pain and fear
Real sensations override where oblivion should rule.

Resurfacing from the vortex
I get a grip
Of my doctor’s hand
Regaining consciousness
The pain never went away
Keeps torturing me
Costlier than an acid trip, but FDA approved
Another hope shattered
Leaving me with this memory
where there should be none.

***

A Ketamine intervention is an FDA approved procedure that should interrupt pain signals to the brain in chronic pain patients. I later learned that my experience was similar to a bad trip and called The K-Hole in party circles.