Day 3 Saturday The ketamine starts

I sleep until 6 in my great, quiet room. I have breakfast, shower, dress, put my make-up on, make my bed and read until my friend Anastasia arrives about 9am.

9.15am The Ketamine is started on the lowest dose, 2mg, it’s a continual feed into your body so there aren’t any ups and downs. Every hour it is increased by 2mg until you get to either the no- tolerance zone, which is usually identified by having hallucinations, nausea or vomiting or to the top limit of 40mg.

The nurse asks me my pain score, on a normal day it’s four so I tell her four but really it is five but I know that is only because I haven’t been moving around much. She says my 4 would be someone else’s 7.

Anastasia manages my new mate, the machine that administers the ketamine. I name him Roger, and we all go to the cafe for coffee and vanilla slice. We then go outside and down the path to a nice bench under a gumtree (Mr Garden Bench). We return to the room at 10.10 for a top-up and then repeat this every hour until Anastasia leaves at 12.30pm. I make some phone calls and do some work.

A few words about Roger: his official name is an intravenous infusion pump and his job is to administer the ketamine intravenously to my circulatory system. The ketamine comes in what looks like a long, very large syringe. Two nurses need to oversee the changeover of the syringe when it runs out and the front part of the machine where it goes is only opened with a key. Roger has two electrical leads that plug into a power point behind my bedside table, luckily I have bought a power board from home so I can keep the leads closer to me as I need to unplug both leads if I want to move from the immediate area on the right side of the bed. When Roger is unplugged he runs on a battery.

At 1.45pm I start to feel that it is affecting my mind. I feel a little altered so call my business partner Kay to let her know that something is going on. Nick arrives and I start to feel a little unpleasant and strange – this is not something that you would do for fun. My sense of smell is heightened and I find the diffuser I had bought in overpowering and ask Nick to move it to the other side of the room. I didn’t feel hungry but I have a small piece of fruit and after having one piece eat the rest of the small bowl.

2.25pm I am increased to 12mg and I tell the nurses I feel a little altered. We take Roger out for a walk to the bench under the gumtree until it was time for the next increase. My time perception seems a little altered: has it been 10 minutes or 45? My thought process seems to be moving around a bit.

3.27pm I’m increased to 14mg per hour and I do some work, typing this document. The unusual feelings come and go, none of the new feelings seem to be constant.

4.22pm It’s increased to 16mg and I believe I am still managing to work ok, it’s just taking me longer to process and I need to triple-check what I am doing, but at least I know that I need to triple check.

5.17pm I’m increased to 18 and my pain score drops to 2, unbelievable, in a good way

6.07pm Doc Malik comes just after 6 and I know that this is the time he arrives as I am watching the news, the same as when he arrived the previous night, so why am I surprised to see him?

He explains a little more of what will be going on, saying that it will be a similar feeling to being drunk and I’m not to feel scared. He and Nick say that I shouldn’t be working but I think I can still continue at this stage. I don’t scare easily but I do feel very unprepared, cognitively and psychologically.

7.16pm This feeling is not pleasurable, it is slightly uncomfortable; you would not choose to do this. My head feels a little heavy at the front on the right side where I have previously had skull fractures (I am very accident-prone). The pain comes and goes, nothing is consistent.

My father doesn’t realise I am in hospital and I ask Nick to manage any emails from him as I am stressing that I will forget to check them and if I don’t reply to an email he might phone. I don’t want him to know I am in hospital as then he will ring me every day, maybe multiple times a day, and I can’t cope with that pressure on a normal day let alone while I am in this state.

7.27pm The dose is increased for the final time tonight, I ask the nurse what name she wants to be known by in this blog, she chooses “Beautiful Girl”, BG, perfect! I don’t like that I don’t know her name, I want to speak to the manager about name tags and the nurses writing their names on the white board in my room to help me remember.

We go for a walk and I feel a little unsteady on my feet, I’m certainly flaky but not off with the pixies. Small underlying stresses in my mind are easily making me cry. It’s strange to try and understand that I will be in this state for up to a week; it’s not a pleasant thought as I am not feeling comfortable in my own skin.

8.21pm Nick goes home which is fine as I would really like to watch a trashy TV show and not feel that I should be doing something else. But I can’t as there are things I have to do, I need to write this, I need to understand what is going on and I understand things by writing them down. I need to talk about pain, the big ugly secret of my life. But am I brave enough? Possibly not. Bringing it out in the open serves no purpose so why would you do that and waste time and effort on it, better to enjoy life.

There is this new thing that nurse Beautiful Girl talks about, the no-pain option. Is this a realistic option? It’s a very interesting thing to consider I will have to put some thought into it.

So now I have to make a choice between three things that I want to do. 1. Watch OITNB (Orange is the New Black) 2. Explore the no-pain zone in my head or 3. Phone Nick because I said I would. And I might like a chocolate.

8.38pm I’m going to watch OITNB and eat a little chocolate. How can I be like this for a week? It’s not possible. I discovered that the chocolate is not in reach – my life is now ruled by how far I can move from Roger without doing the unplugging thing, which is currently annoying. So no more typing, I am going to watch OITNB.

10pm I loved the show, it was perfect for my head space right now, it was also good that I could replay any bits that I was struggling to follow. I went to the loo and of course while I was in there the nurses came to change over. BG said that she was leaving and would be back tomorrow afternoon and that I had done very well today. What does that mean, that I have done well? I try my best at everything I do but in this situation what or who am I competing with? Well compared to what or whom?

After they left I got changed for bed only to find that I couldn’t get totally out of my clothes as the PICC lines went through my right sleeve, my new nurse (a weekend agency nurse) said he would be back when he had seen everyone else so I’ve climbed into bed to wait for him. My brain tells me I should think about sleeping but I would like to watch another show or maybe phone Kay.

Kay didn’t answer, so I watched another show and finally at 11pm (an hour after I had asked for help) the nurse came in. Without warning me or asking me if it was ok he shoves his hand up the inside of my top, brushes past my boob and unhooks my lines from the clothes. I do not feel dignified but more like an elderly, frail lady who needs assistance in getting changed. He then picks up my clothes and puts them on top of me. Is this how I am meant to sleep with my clothes piled on top of me?  

After he leaves (he doesn't shut my door) I get up to move them to a chair. I then discover that he has plugged Roger in on the far wall, I can’t reach the plugs at all! I get down under the foot of the bed and work out how the brake on the bed releases so I can move the bed away from the wall and get in behind it to get to the power point and move Roger’s leads back to my side of the bed. He really is a dick! None of this sounds like a big deal unless you are in the middle of a ketamine infusion which means I am very unsteady in my physical movements and everything takes a huge thought process. I get the bed back in position, put the brake back on, close my door, and try to go to sleep. It is so ridiculous that I had to do all of that. In my state it’s a big job and I’m surprised I managed it all without falling over but I didn’t want him back in my room.