Approval

On May 9, the day before I left for Iceland I received the insurance approval in the mail for my upcoming ketamine treatments.  I was so relieved to be leaving on a positive note and to have one less hurdle on front of me to pursue this course.  I know many people get denied and it is stressful always waiting on your insurance to make a determination.  I had spoken to the Spravato Rep and he was convinced that my insurance was good and I would not have issues being approved like some other Florida based companies would so that put me somewhat at ease but also I have been denied before and so until I had that paper in my hand I would not really be able to be certain. 

It was a real weight off of me to receive that letter but also in a way, another weight added.  I now had to confront the possibility that this won’t work or that I will have a bad reaction to it.  It has always been in the back of my mind but now it was more real.  More tangible.  And my brain was free to think about it and not have the insurance approval in front of it waving its hands and distracting me. 

Even in Iceland, when I was relaxed and calm and should by all rights be enjoying myself, I was not.  I was laden with sadness and daily woe bearing down on me.  Don’t get me wrong, I had small moments of enjoyment and I was at least relaxed but I had a low level anxiety permeating my being the entire time.  Part of it was my fears, my worries, over the roads in Iceland and my ability to navigate such rough terrain in the remote Westfjords but in the moments of stillness when I was not behind the wheel I could still feel it there.  Like an unpleasant fire under my skin, itching and burning.  I am not one who does well to calm my mind.  I will start any meditative process and immediately regress into awfulizing.  But even in the times when I had nothing to worry about I managed to find things or create things.  I could not find peace.

I remember one day in particular I was sitting at this large antique dining room table in our Airbnb listening to the wind howl through the old windows and eaves of the house.  I could see out the kitchen windows onto the fjord and watch the waves lash against the dock.  We were in an old fishing village in a historic house which often brough tourists to take photos while I was doing dishes.  I remember thinking how blessed I was to have this experience and at the same time asking myself why I felt so sad about it.  If I can’t shut up my mind in this situation how would I ever quiet my mind in the worst of situations? 

Then I remember thinking how hopeless I felt.  How I don’t see a clear path out of this.  How it all seems so insurmountable.  How do I ever get my life back?  I think the worst part for me is that despite having spent my whole life battling this disease, I had a time of remission (thanks to my acupuncture) that allowed me to see what was possible.  It allowed me to glimpse a life for a few short years that I had no idea existed until then.  I had spent my life up to that point being so drugged into oblivion that I thought that is how it was supposed to be.  Now I know it can be so much more and having that taken from me is so much worse than maybe never having it at all.  Now I know what I am missing and I have a point of comparison that I recognize a lot of people do not.  But it adds pressure to this drug of Ketamine to work.  And it adds to my fears that it won’t.