Disability Short Story: The Waiting Room at the Ketamine Clinic

Note: I have clinical depression which is being treated in part by ketamine infusions. I wrote this based on my experience from the last infusion of my loading dose in December 2023.

We leave for the clinic early. Five minutes can mean the difference between arriving at 2:15 and arriving at 2:30. I don’t make the LA traffic rules, I only abide by them. I check in and pay. Then I wait and I watch. 

There’s the girl in her high school uniform whose mother joins her in the treatment room;

The fresh-faced boy wearing a local college T-shirt with all of his treatments pre-paid;

All of the women, women of all ages, races, and classes:

The black middle-aged woman in the motorized wheelchair escorted her caretaker and one of the clinic nurses;

A woman in an expensive red coat;

A hippie woman with long, long hair;

A woman in her 20s who needed to call someone she trusted for their credit card so she could pay for her treatment;

Me, in my mid 30s after a complete mental breakdown. 

One patient sticks out in my mind whose appointments often overlapped with mine.

He’s a skeletal elderly man who reminds me of my husband’s late grandfather. His caretakers, including his wife, treat him like an inconvenience, an object to be shuttled from appointment to appointment. I hope there is someone in his family who treats him with dignity, respect, kindness, and love. 

Eventually, my name is called. I hand in my cell phone and the nurse takes me to my room. I settle in with my weighted blanket and my slippers. The nurse sets up my music and places my eye mask. She turns on the treatment and leaves. I don’t exist for 55 minutes. 

My husband picks me up and I am still loopy. I enthusiastically say Happy Holidays to the security guard who smiles and wishes us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I stumble a bit as we get to the car. 

Inhibitions lost, I sing carols at the top of my lungs as my husband navigates traffic. The red and white brakes and headlights twinkle as though they are lights attached to the eaves of the houses on my street. I feel alive. For the first time in six months, maybe even longer, I feel alive!

I hope the same for the people I have watched at the clinic. That they feel like themselves. That they feel alive. That they found whatever they were looking for when they opened the door to the clinic. That they no longer want to die and they feel worth being here. Like I do.