If you're an elder millennial like me, you may remember a time when ketamine was mostly known by its street name, Special K, otherwise known as a substance you are not even tempted by after that one time that your friend's cousin got stuck in a K-hole and hallucinated in a hall closet for an entire night and freaked everyone out. But ketamine has gotten a bit of a makeover in recent years after the FDA's 2019 green light for intranasal ketamine has helped fuel thousands of ketamine clinics across the United States, and a large number of clinical studies are currently exploring the drug for treatment-resistant depression and other conditions. But despite some genuinely promising research, ketamine has been trending again more recently for less positive reasons, as it was responsible for the death of beloved actor Matthew Perry in October of 2023, and is also responsible for some of whatever the hell is going on with Elon Musk. Ketamine is also a big part of this story. You see enough of these patients, you know how they deteriorate, and nothing is working. Surgery doesn't work. Drugs don't work. Neuroplocs don't work. And you do this one thing, and it works. One of my enduring questions about the public reception of the Kowalski story is how on earth they managed to tell this story in such a way that it seemed fine and normal to give a nine-year-old girl so much ketamine. So be brave, be just. On September 23rd, 2015, after being told by doctors from three separate hospitals, including a pain specialist with expertise in CRPS, that Maya Kowalski did not have CRPS, but was suffering from a conversion disorder, Beata Kowalski took Maya to see Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick. So let's go over your history just a little bit, okay? Approximately three months ago, you started having some pain down in your feet here, okay? Here's what's important to understand, is that there is no particular injury we can attribute this to, okay? Also, another thing that's important to note is that with that, she knows different fluctuating temperatures between the two sides. In other words, sometimes one side would be colder, sometimes one side would be warmer, and sometimes one would be more red than the other, but it would flip-flop back and forth. Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick is an anesthesiologist and self-described expert in CRPS. As we learned at trial, his credentials are a little questionable. Here he is being cross-examined by attorney Howard Hunter. Not board certified? No. Not board certified in either anesthesiology or pediatric? Correct. You've never been board certified in anything? Correct. And Dr. Kirkpatrick readily acknowledged his outlier status, again from his cross-examination. You had a patient in front of you who dozens, literally dozens of other doctors had seen and treated at length. And you were the first one making a diagnosis of CRPS, correct? Correct. But for Beata Kowalski, Dr. Kirkpatrick was a godsend. The day after their first visit on September 23rd, Beata emailed Dr. Kirkpatrick to thank him for giving us supporting evidence and the diagnosis. Supporting evidence because, of course, Beata had already reported to a doctor that Maya had CRPS, as Howard Hunter mentioned in Corp. Incidentally, you were the first one to diagnose CRPS? Yes, sir. On September 23rd, 2015? Yes, sir. How do you suppose it was that the mother thought that was the current diagnosis a week before? Dr. Kirkpatrick admitted that he didn't know where that diagnosis had come from. In this same email, Beata also discusses scheduling Maya for her first ketamine infusion and asks about laser and stem cell treatments for her daughter. Beata signs her email, XOXO. As he appears to do with many of his patients, Dr. Kirkpatrick recorded videos of his evaluations of Maya, and these are frankly strange to watch. As we discussed in the last episode, Maya's alleged condition, complex regional pain syndrome, is, well, regional, and it's a condition that begins with some kind of injury. Yet in Dr. Kirkpatrick's evaluation of a wheelchair-bound Maya, he's asking her about pain everywhere, from her cheeks to her shoulders to her feet and the skin on the top of her thigh. Okay, excellent. Good job. Now, the next thing I want to do here, Maya, is you see how we've got you marked here? I want you to close your eyes, bring your little trousers back a little bit. That a girl. Reading Dr. Kirkpatrick's depositions and watching his testimony, it's tough to wrap your brain around how he justifies giving Maya this diagnosis, which he describes as severe and progressive in her case. He says in a deposition that while CRPS is usually triggered by an injury, that, quote, often we don't know what causes it in children because they're, quote, not good record keepers on account of how much they're, quote, bouncing around. Which, sure, they are, but as a mom of a seven-year-old and a three-year-old, I can tell you that children are not especially stoic when they hurt themselves. It is, in fact, usually an entire opera. Anyway, according to Beata, Maya's CRPS symptoms allegedly began with an asthma attack, which even Kirkpatrick says there's no known connection with. And yet right away, in the first appointment, Beata gets the CRPS diagnosis she's been looking for, and they're off to the races scheduling a four-day-long ketamine infusion. Here, Beata asks Dr. Kirkpatrick about the side effects. How, in her case, how bad is it going to be? and how long will the short memory loss last? Yeah, good question. We want the short-term memory to be really bad, really bad. But her long-term memory should be intact. So if I ask her to remember, you know, if she can remember me telling her that her mom has got a visitor, a visitor, you know what I'm talking about, mom? But she'll remember. What did I just remember about you? What did I just tell you I saw in your mother? What did I see? A visitor. A visitor. You know what that is, don't you? Yes. See, so I do pick on moms too, don't I? Did she see she remembered that? But when she's on the ketamine, I don't want her to remember that. We want to get, but if I ask you, what country do you live in? You can tell me what country. United States. Perfect. Perfect. Now, it's not unheard of to use ketamine in treating CRPS. As Dr. Elliot Crane, the pediatric pain specialist we heard from in the last episode, explains on the stand. And it's something that we reserve for refractory cases that we cannot make better after a full court press, which would be intensive physical therapy every day for weeks, typically 10 or 12 weeks, psychotherapy every day for the same period of time, and using all the drugs that we have on the shelf that are to some degree effective in CRPS. However, Dr. Crane emphasized that ketamine is used as a last resort for refractory pain, or pain that won't resolve any other way, and is used at a very low dose. So it's possible that a child with CRPS might need to receive some type of ketamine treatment at some point. However, as a reminder, three hospitals, Johns Hopkins All Children's, Lurie's Children's in Chicago, and Tampa General had all evaluated Maya and determined that she was suffering from a conversion disorder. And interestingly, the standard of care for conversion disorder is the same as that for CRPS, physical and occupational therapy and psychotherapy. But that was not Dr. Kirkpatrick's way of doing things. He's in the business of ketamine. And less than two weeks after her first visit, Maya was back in his office for a four-day ketamine infusion. Now are you ready to do some testing Do two vertical fingers in your mouth and tell me you still have that pain under your eye And if so if it the same or if it decreased Go ahead tell me It the same It didn improve Can you open your mouth better now? What do you think? It hurts a lot more when I open my mouth. Well, I know, I know. But we're talking about how it compared to where it was before we gave you the ketamine, okay? It's about the same. Yeah, all right. If it's difficult to tell, it's difficult to tell. There are a number of moments like this in these videos where Maya is saying one thing, and rather than accepting her assessment that her pain is the same as it was before the pricey ketamine infusion, Kirkpatrick overrides it in real time. These videos, which were posted on Dr. Kirkpatrick's website, are frankly disturbing. One features Maya coming out of one of her ketamine infusions, and she's very clearly in a state of distress and disorientation. And Dr. Kirkpatrick is just really something. This is an exchange from a later video. Okay, all right. I have a question for you. You ready? Yes. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you? Do you have a boyfriend? People want to know. No, they don't. Talk about putting somebody on the spot, huh? I can tell you that if a doctor shoved a camera in my daughter's face and asked her this, that would be the last time I set foot in his office. The efficacy and necessity of the ketamine that Maya received over the year that followed her diagnosis was a big point of contention at trial. According to Beata and Dr. Kirkpatrick, as well as Jack Kowalski and his legal team, ketamine was necessary to help Maya. But the exhaustive medical records, as well as Beata's own emails and blog posts, tell a markedly different story. On October 23rd, one month after her CRPS diagnosis from Dr. Kirkpatrick, and about a week after her first ketamine infusion, the tone of Beata's blog turns dire. She writes, again as Maya, quote, I told my mom that day I don't want to live this way anymore. I can't take this pain anymore. I wish I could just die. End quote. This notion of Maya being suicidal comes up in a later Kirkpatrick video from a follow-up visit, where Beata and Jack Kowalski are both present, and which is once again filmed, as Dr. Kirkpatrick put it, to help other kids. And Maya, I think you made the point that you just didn't really want to continue, did you? No. You'd rather be in a coma than continue the way what life was going for you, right? Correct. Am I correct on that? Maya did say several times that she would rather be in a coma or die than live like that. The theme of death and wanting to die become a constant drumbeat on Piatta's blog. In their follow-up visit with Dr. Kirkpatrick on November 2nd, Piatta and Maya don't report much of a change from the ketamine. And this visit tracks one of many reports that the ketamine does not seem to be helping Maya. Here's Howard Hunter questioning Dr. Kirkpatrick on the stand. In this report, you indicated that the CRPS she had was intractable, correct? Correct. And it had proven refractory to your first care, correct? Yeah, very poor response. And despite CRPS not being a fatal diagnosis, in a series of email exchanges where Beata is directing care, coordinating between a pharmacist named John Schott, who appeared to have been a co-worker of hers, and Dr. Kirkpatrick, among others, Beata requests that Maya be labeled as terminal. This was about six weeks after her diagnosis. I asked pediatric hospitalist Dr. Bex what the implications of this label might be. There are doses of pain medications you can use at home, because now there's a lot more restrictions as well in cases of palliative care, hospice care, versus just a child who may need pain medication. Maya was receiving many medications at home, in addition to her ketamine infusions. Beata's emails with Dr. Kirkpatrick and John Schott discuss high doses of pain medications, including powerful opioids such as OxyContin and Dilaudid. In a November 2nd email, the day of her follow-up with Kirkpatrick, Beata asks about giving Maya fentanyl. Beata also frequently asked Dr. Kirkpatrick to step in with others, including asking him to speak to John Schott about labeling Maya as terminal, which did eventually make it onto one of her prescriptions. She also asked Dr. Kirkpatrick to intervene with Maya's GI doctors to request that Maya be put on TPN, or intravenous tube feeds. In a pretrial deposition, the pharmacist John Schott said he only added the terminal label to Maya's prescription after a phone call with Dr. Kirkpatrick. Dr. Kirkpatrick didn't have much of an answer for this on the stand, other than to say that it was outside of his scope to label a patient as terminal. Dr. Kirkpatrick maintained that he didn't authorize pharmacist John Schott's notation that Maya was terminally ill. Kirkpatrick also noted in an email to Beata that when asked for a second prescription from another pharmacist with a terminal label, that he wasn't willing to do it because it was beyond the scope of his practice. However, he didn't seem to shy away from the idea that Maya was at risk of death. Here he is in the Netflix film explaining an exchange he had with Beata. So I warned her in all medical probability that Maya would die a slow, painful death. The specter of Maya's death is consistent on Biana's blog. On November 4th, she writes, Every day is the same as the one prior or worse. I'm losing hope and I often ask God to let me die because I cannot handle this anymore. This is not fair. I don't want to live this way anymore. I would rather die. I run a small business and I have two small children. And that means that my husband and I are in a near constant state of decision fatigue. So the simple question of what should we make for dinners this week can lead to existential dread. Thank goodness for HelloFresh. All you have to do is go to HelloFresh.com and choose from more than 100 weekly recipes and they will send you fresh pre-portioned ingredients with a quick and easy recipe. But Andrea, you say you still have to make decisions. True, but they make it very easy and fun to choose your recipes. Whether you're looking for meat and potatoes, vegetarian, kid-friendly, diet-conscious, they've got it all. You get to skip going to the grocery store and the ingredients that come in your box are the highest quality. Now they include three times the seafood for no upcharge. If you are a steak fanatic like my husband, you can check out their grass-fed steak ribeyes and you're always going to get fresh seasonal produce like pears, apples, and asparagus. We have never gotten a meal from HelloFresh that wasn't a winner and getting the box each week really takes something off our plates. Get it? Sorry. So go to HelloFresh.com slash nobody10fm to get 10 free meals and a free Zwilling knife, which is a $144 value on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. You can find all of that information at the link in our show notes. And remember that shopping our sponsors help support the show. 2026 is turning into my year of giving keynotes. So I'm going to be traveling around a lot, heading to Chicago, Florida, Nashville, San Diego, and who knows where else. So I decided it was time for a little luggage upgrade. So I went where I go for all my high quality essentials. Quince, of course. I'm always finding new categories of things to shop for on Quince, and they've added a lot of items to their travel section recently. My brown Italian leather hand-woven tote was a favorite purchase of last year. They also have these very cute quilted totes and duffels and their best-selling hard shell suitcases in carry-on and checked sizes. The set is only $229. True story, I was just perusing the site in order to write this ad copy and on a whim I ended up buying myself the leather jewelry travel case and the leather crossbody phone case and card holder in emerald green. This happens to me almost every time and honestly no regrets. So if you are on the go this year I highly recommend checking out Quince's travel gear. As with everything from Quince you will be getting the highest quality goods at half the cost because Quince works directly with safe ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So right now go to quince.com slash believe for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear it and love it and you will. Now available in Canada too Don keep settling for clothes and luggage that doesn last Go to quince slash believe for free shipping and 365 day returns Quince slash believe And remember that shopping our sponsors is a great way to support the show So to recap, Maya is diagnosed with CRPS on September 23rd and receives her first ketamine infusion starting on October 6th. Then she comes in for a follow-up on November 2nd where they discuss the lackluster results of this intervention. Dr. Kirkpatrick explains the next step they took. So I discussed with the mother and with Maya the idea of the ketamine coma procedure. On November 12th, fewer than eight weeks after Maya's diagnosis, Beata, Jack, and Maya flew to Mexico to visit Dr. Fernando Cantu for an experimental procedure that would begin on November 18th. It's described here in the film. Some patients are taking control of their pain by going into a coma. Here, doctors use up to 50 times the typical dose to induce a five-day coma. The Kowalskis were referred to Dr. Cantu by Dr. Kirkpatrick, and as he testified to a trial, this treatment was a last resort for patients suffering from the elusive condition of whole-body complex regional pain syndrome. He said in court that a qualification for the procedure was that patients were experiencing pain on 80 to 90 percent of their body, and that they had failed all other treatments. because these high-dose infusions administered while the patient is intubated and in a medically induced coma are extremely risky. Here's Jack in Take Care of Maya. And then he told us that there's a chance that she could potentially die. Though Dr. Cantu equivocated on the exact percentage on the stand, when asked in a pretrial deposition about just how high the risk of death was for this procedure, Dr. Cantu said 50% or more and testified that he always informs patients of the risks. And Beata, on her blog, positions this risk as necessary. She writes, quote, So far, I am the youngest child in history who has developed severe generalized RSD in a very short period of time. And I am the first youngest child in history who is going to be placed in a high-dose ketamine coma. It's my last and only chance for a better quality of life. And this framing goes unchecked by the Netflix film. Beata also emphasizes the risks Maya in particular is at from this procedure on her blog, writing, quote, This procedure is very high risk in my complex case due to the fact that I have immunodeficiency, very poor nutrition status, and now severe adrenal insufficiency. I was told today that I am a high-risk patient for developing infection slash sepsis during the coma, difficulty weaning off the ventilator after coma, needing blood transfusions, and total body failure slash death as a result of adrenal insufficiency and other complications. But again, according to the blog, this is all well worth it because as Beata writes in Maya's voice, quote, The doctors explained to me and my mom that because of history of cough variant asthma, I am at high risk for dying. Dying, yes, that may sound very scary to any 10-year-old girl. But to me, it beats the alternative of constant suffering and pain. I would almost welcome death over the kind of life I have right now. While Maya is in a medically induced coma in Mexico, intubated, sedated, and unable to speak, the blog continues to post daily updates written in Maya's voice. These posts describe ICU complications, ventilator issues, lab values, all written as though Maya herself is narrating the experience. And a number of these posts have an oddly proud tone about how much medication Maya's little body can endure. On November 21st, she writes, quote, I have a very high tolerance for drugs. If I was a horse, I would be comatose or dead already. But things are totally different when it comes to a girl with RSD. And, quote, Dr. Cantu told me he has not seen a soon-to-be 10-year-old girl requiring this much sedation. Well, what can I tell you? I'm just a very, very special little girl. Winky face emoji. Despite Beata's markedly cheerful tone, this is one of the most disturbing sections of the blog, as it includes numerous photos and videos of Maya intubated in a hospital bed. And the Netflix film includes a harrowing clip of Maya from this trip. Fortunately, Maya did survive this treatment, and between this trip and a return visit to Cantu in December for a booster, Maya had a follow-up visit with Dr. Elvin Mendez, an allergy and immunology specialist who'd seen her once previously for concerns of immunodeficiency, another of Maya's alleged conditions. Following this visit, Dr. Mendez sent a note to Maya's pediatrician, Dr. Wassenauer. Here's Dr. Mendez at trial with attorney Howard Hunter. What specifically did you call to Dr. Wassenauer's attention about? So I was concerned about Munchausen by proxy at the time. And why was that? Because the symptoms, the physical examination, the objective tests that I review in medical records did not correlate with the story I was getting from them. Dr. Mendez was one of a series of medical professionals to independently document concerns about a psychological element to Maya's symptoms, and the second provider, the first being Bonnie Rice from Tampa General, to explicitly mention Munchausen by proxy concerns, though he did not report these concerns to DCF. Maya's pediatrician, Dr. Wassenauer, who received this note, did not share Dr. Mendez's concerns for abuse. Incidentally, although Dr. Cantu testified that a psych consult was part of his protocol, it's unclear if Maya was ever given one. Despite the outsized role he played in this case, Maya only saw Dr. Kirkpatrick in his office four times. Once for an evaluation, a second time for a four-day ketamine infusion, for a follow-up post-infusion, and then for a check-in after the ketamine coma procedure he'd referred her for. So she went through the five-day ketamine infusion. Why did we elect to do that after trying to get her under control with a four-day outpatient ketamine? Because her response was not definite enough, clear enough, that more ketamine infusions was the way to go. But keep in mind, as your mom knows, since she's a nurse, going in intensive care unit is much, much higher in risk, much higher. Not to mention how it is when you come out of the coma. I mean, going into the coma is no problem, right, Maya? Isn't that right? Yeah. Tell us about how it was when you came out. Was it pretty bad news? Yeah, I did not like it. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was coughing like crazy, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Right, right. So it's important to tell it like it is. That's right. It's tough. Now, but now having been through all that, was it worth it? Yes. Look me in the eyes and say, Dr. Kirkpatrick, it was worth it. Yes, Dr. Kirkpatrick, it was worth it. Okay. Here's Jack Kowalski in Take Care of Maya explaining what they did next. When we got back from Mexico, we couldn't afford to keep up with Dr. Kirkpatrick's treatments. So he recommended his colleague, Dr. Hanna, who took our insurance and prescribed low dosages of ketamine for Maya. so 2026 is turning into my year of giving keynotes so i'm going to be traveling around a lot heading to chicago florida nashville san diego and who knows where else so i decided it was time for a little luggage upgrade so i went where i go for all my high quality essentials quince of course i'm always finding new categories of things to shop for on quince and they've added a lot of items to their travel section recently. My brown Italian leather hand-woven tote was a favorite purchase of last year. They also have these very cute quilted totes and duffels and their best selling hard shell suitcases in carry-on and checked sizes. The set is only $229. True story, I was just perusing the site in order to write this ad copy and on a whim I ended up buying myself the leather jewelry travel case and the leather crossbody phone case and card holder in emerald green. This happens to me almost every time and honestly, no regrets. So if you are on the go this year, I highly recommend checking out Quince's travel gear. As with everything from Quince, you will be getting the highest quality goods at half the cost because Quince works directly with safe ethical factories and cuts out the middleman So right now go to quince slash believe for free shipping and 365 returns That a full year to wear it and love it, and you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes and luggage that doesn't last. Go to quince.com slash believe for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash believe. And remember that shopping our sponsors is a great way to support the show. Dr. Kirkpatrick's ketamine clinic is cash only, and the four-day infusions he performs run about $12,000 a week. So in January of 2016, Maya had an initial consult with Dr. Ashraf Hanna, and she began treatment with him days later. Dr. Hanna is a Florida pain management physician and anesthesiologist who advertised as, quote, the world's leading ketamine doctor on billboards around the area and online under the moniker No Pain Hanna. Like Kirkpatrick, Hannah is a self-described expert on CRPS, but is not trained in pediatrics. And also like Kirkpatrick, he's a ketamine guy. A previously recorded deposition from Dr. Hannah was played in court. Can you confirm with me, Dr. Anna, that those are your standard initial and maintenance therapy doses for CRPS patients receiving ketamine? Yeah, but again, these are, as you see here, dosage may left up to MD discretion. So they change a lot, yes. Understood. But your standard initial dose is one milligram per kilogram per hour? Yeah, those are guidelines in general. Yes, I start with the one milligram per kilo and titrate it. I can stay at one, I can stay at two, I can go to three. It really varies. And how often do you go above 20 milligrams per kilogram per hour in your practice? Not that common. According to records, Dr. Hanna started Maya off with 4.5 milligrams per kilogram per hour. And by the time he was finished treating her, according to testimony from Dr. Elliot Crane, a recognized expert in pediatric pain medicine and CRPS, Maya was receiving an exceptionally high dose of ketamine. How does it compare to the doses that Kirkpatrick and Hannah used? Kirkpatrick started around, I think, a milligram per kilogram per hour and over four days ramped it up to 2.5 milligrams per kilogram per hour. I don't remember what Hannah's starting dose was, but it was significantly, substantially higher. And went up even higher and higher still, so that by October of 2016, he was using doses in the range of 25 to 30 milligrams per kilogram per hour. Ten times the typical anesthetic dose for a patient. Mind you, an anesthetic dose means enough to knock you out cold. And indeed, ketamine has been in use the longest for this purpose. The doses used to treat pain are much lower. All in all, between her first visit with Hannah in January of 2016 and her hospitalization at Johns Hopkins All Children's in October of that same year, Maya would receive 55 ketamine infusions from Dr. Hannah in escalating doses that doctors would later testify were 15 to 100 times the recommended amount. In February of 2016, Maya had a visit with pediatric neurologist Dr. Carl Barr for an evaluation. He did not confirm the diagnosis of CRPS independently, and once more recommended the same course of treatment that Johns Hopkins All Children's Tampa General and Lurie Children's had recommended. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and non-narcotic interventions. But non-narcotic interventions were not the direction that the Kowalskis went in. Beata reported to Dr. Barr that Maya had been diagnosed with CRPS in August of 2016 by Dr. Kirkpatrick rather than September, and that Dr. Kirkpatrick believed that the likely source was a gymnastics injury that had occurred in April of 2015. This alleged inciting injury is not mentioned anywhere else. The following month in March of 2016, Maya had a port placed for intravenous medication, which had been ordered by Dr. Hanna as Maya was regularly getting infusions in his office and having to be stuck with needles each time. Beata reported accessing Maya's port a number of times during an April visit to the pediatric ICU at Orlando Health Hospitals for an IVIG treatment, which had been recommended by Dr. Barr, likely for Maya's alleged immunodeficiency issues. During this visit, Beata reported that she was giving Maya intravenous ketamine at home, sometimes several times a day. This PICU record also indicates that Maya scored a 5 out of 5 in strength for all major muscle groups and showed good muscle tone. It also states that Maya had a full range of motion, no joint swelling, and no joint limb deformities. And this is despite the fact that Maya was in a wheelchair during this time. On Beata's blog around this time, she posts about the family fundraising with their church and Maya's school for Maya's medical treatments. And each blog post includes a link where people can donate to help Maya's fight. The idea that ketamine treatments were the only thing that helped Maya, despite the fact that Maya continued to decline while receiving massive doses, is something that neither the Netflix film nor the plaintiff's attorneys made any attempt to reconcile. It's mostly explained away by positioning Dr. Kirkpatrick and Dr. Hanna as the only two people who truly understand CRPS. Here's Hanna in his deposition. I've treated 18,000 CRPS infusions done with thousands of patients that are treated for me that are coming from all over the world. And I've seen that very commonly. And it's unclear what the markers of treatment success are for Hannah. So she comes to you with a quality of life scale in January of 2016 of two. And when she leaves you, it's zero. And you're now sending her to the emergency room at a children's hospital. and that's considered a success in your book based on 18,000 patients. Sir, the treatment she had is left. All those patients that I've treated, at some points or the other, they had zero relief. At some points or the other, they have trauma that increased their pain. They had surgery and their pain went sky high, went to zero. Then we treat them and then they get better. but the answer always seems to be more ketamine both the medical records and beata's own accounts on her blog revealed that maya received no sustained benefit from the ketamine her pain was always coming back and coming back worse maya was wheelchair bound and she was pulled out of school but on october 6 2016 maya had a final visit with dr hannah after receiving a total of 55 ketamine infusions at his office. Maya was in bad shape, suffering from excruciating stomach pain. She was dehydrated, malnourished, and was having issues with withdrawal in her short-term memory. All symptoms consistent with the high use of ketamine and opioids. Maya was reporting a zero out of 10 on the quality of life scale that Hannah gives patients during visits. Beata wanted more ketamine, but Hannah had reached his limit. Okay, so you send her to Johns Hopkins All Children's hospital? Yes. Why? Because I failed to help her. There's nothing I could do. I told the mother that's the maximum I can do. I cannot give her anymore. On October 7th, the Kowalskis arrived at the ER at Johns Hopkins All Children's, igniting a series of events that would change the course of many lives. Her concern was merely administering ketamine over and over, more and more and more. That's next time on Nobody Should Believe Me. Nobody Should Believe Me is executive produced, written and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our co-executive producer is Mariah Gossett. Our editor is Greta Stromquist. Research and fact-checking by Erin Ajayi. Additional research by Jessa V. Randall. Our production manager is Nola Karmouche. Music from Blue Dot Sessions, SoundSnap and Slipstream. consumer 90 Whits
