Was it worth it?

Absolutely, to no longer be addicted to such a strong drug is a huge relief and I am pleased I went through the infusion. The weight I lost during the three weeks of barely eating was a bonus and even though I have gained a little bit of it back I am pleased that most of it has stayed off.

However, I still think I am living with too much pain and wish I could get more relief, but it looks like this is my life. I try not to dwell on the pain and not to talk about it. Why give it even more power over me?

I have written this in the hope it might give other people who are considering a ketamine infusion some information on one person’s journey. I now understand a little more in relation to all the medical comments of “it’s different for everyone”. Out of the four of us that started I was the only one who managed to see it through to the end, so my experience is different to others. According to Malik the fact that I was mind-altered for such a long time was unusual. However, it's possible that there are other people who have had similar experiences to me (I would love to hear from them).

I now understand why other blogs lasted only a couple of days into the infusion and then stopped. It's too difficult to keep track of what is going on and you continually lose your train of thought. I managed to chronicle my journey only by relying on other people writing for me and taking notes. There were periods where I couldn’t write at all and I just dictated over the phone.

It has taken me longer than I expected to get the blog online and most of this stems from a reluctance to read what I wrote during the infusion. I was worried that I was too repetitive, too introspective and too self-indulgent and that I would be embarrassed by what I had written.

I now realise that the main reason for having the infusion was not to see if it could manage my pain better but to detox me from the fentanyl. My pain specialist Raph says that no pain specialist would put me on fentanyl patches nowadays as it is too hard to get patients off them.