#all hail the teddy bear on alans bed

[moron-rights]

(and they were roommates)

the concept of late victorian men obsessing over ‘old’ penny dreadfuls, vampires, and pride and prejudice has me messed up

[nattytumbles-blog1]

Alan Watts, Hall and Oates, and Ketamine Infusion #4

Yesterday was my fourth infusion. The morning of continued to be almost as nasty as the night before. There were no crying spells, but I felt that dread, that horrible sinking feeling in my chest — the very real physical ache that accompanies severe depression. If you’ve ever had your heart broken, you know what I’m talking about. My husband is my ideal partner in every way, and his commitment to our marriage is so obvious that even my most anxious imagination can find no holes in it, and yet I carry the pain of heartbreak with me nearly every day by virtue of my own neurochemical defects.

My doctor asked me how I was doing as he showed me to the sterile bed. “To be honest, not so great,” I told him. I mentioned the hours-long crying spell, the ache behind my sternum.

“I always debate whether I should tell my patients this,” he mentioned, “because it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But about 25% of my patients experience a dip in mood after the third infusion — and feel immediately better after the fourth.”

Thank God, I thought. This isn’t necessarily a wash. After all, I felt better after the first two. I had no reason not to trust him on this.

Still, I had taken precautions.

Pre-Gaming with the Hard Stuff

That morning, I decided I’d go into my fourth infusion with the most positive mindset I could manage, despite my mood. I prayed, hard. I listened to the music with the best track record of saving my lousy moods: the sonorous strains of Daryl Hall and John Oates, perhaps the best thing that ever happened to the 80s. I decided to listen to them again while under, and to spend the car ride up listening to the lectures of Alan Watts, a theologian and philosopher whose talks on mysticism, punctuated liberally by his self-deprecating laughter, can sometimes orient my thoughts in a more universally loving bent.

I brought the big guns. While being infused, I experienced that same ego death, cosmic-consciousness, everything-makes-sense-now bliss I’d come to expect from each appointment. There was no scary trip, as I’d feared, given the anxiety and depression I’d woken up with. I was happy, hugging my teddy bear (whom, while I was under the influence of ketamine, I named Bacteria Bear — having ecstatically declared I was a congregation of billions of bacteria working in concert). Crying with joy at parts. Amazed by the major seventh chord, which never resolves to the octave, but sounds rich and lush and romantic all the same.

How Am I Now?

Completely tuckered out after infusion #4, I slept the entire ride home. Went to bed at 8PM. I’m on lunch at work now, and have handled today with the same adroitness I experienced all last week.

I hope, then, that this isn’t a wash. I have one more infusion tomorrow, and then one on Saturday. That includes my initial “load,” after which I’ll be placed on a 3-4 week maintenance schedule.

I want — I need, with desperation — this to work. The IV site in my left wrist still aches. A reminder of what I’m investing in this last-ditch effort to normalize a mind askew. Let’s hope this Hail Mary pass lands safely in the palm of healing.