Kathy's Story: The Case of The Mysterious Double Vision

Summary

Summary of "Kathy's Story: The Case of The Mysterious Double Vision"

Podcast Information

• Title: The Medical Detectives
• Host/Author: Soft Skills Media
• Description: A weekly exploration where medicine intersects with mystery, unraveling perplexing medical tales through firsthand accounts. Hosted by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Erin Nance and content creator Anna O’Brien, each episode delves into unsolved diagnoses and insider stories from the medical world.

Episode Details

• Episode Title: Kathy's Story: The Case of The Mysterious Double Vision
• Release Date: January 15, 2025

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Introduction

The episode begins with Anna O'Brien and Dr. Erin Nance setting the stage for discussing prevalent stigmas in healthcare, particularly mental health stigma. They emphasize how labels can both help and hinder patient care.

Anna O'Brien [00:08]:
"Think of it as a detective story—only here, the clues are hidden in blood tests, x-rays, and patient files."

Kathy's Early Life and Initial Diagnosis

Kathy recounts her childhood, starting with her ADHD diagnosis at the tender age of two, which was atypical, especially for girls at that time. She describes her hyperactive and impulsive nature, coupled with exceptional verbal skills.

Kathy [03:12]:
"I was all over the place, couldn't sleep. They would find me in the neighbor's yard behind sofas."

Her parents opted against medicating her ADHD, leading Kathy to develop coping mechanisms that allowed her to lead a high-energy life, eventually becoming an entrepreneur.

Onset of Depression and Misdiagnosis

Approximately a year after her second child was born, Kathy began experiencing severe depression, impacting her business and parenting. A psychiatrist diagnosed her with both ADHD and depression, prescribing Prozac and Adderall, which intensified her anxiety. Subsequently, Xanax was added to her regimen to balance the medications.

Dr. Erin Nance [06:45]:
"Kathy, can you describe what it felt like to go from someone who was really running on all cylinders...?"

Kathy [07:02]:
"It was otherworldly. I felt like I wasn't myself... I needed a reset."

Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis and Its Impact

During an inpatient stay, Kathy was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder, a revelation that left her devastated. She explains the nuances between Bipolar I and Bipolar II, emphasizing that her symptoms didn’t align with the more extreme manifestations of Bipolar I.

Dr. Erin Nance [11:06]:
"Bipolar means between two states, the mania and the depression."

She was prescribed lithium and Lamictal for mood stabilization, which helped her manage symptoms but later adjustments to her medication led to debilitating side effects, including dizziness and impaired proprioception.

Challenges with Medical Professionals

Kathy describes her frustration with the medical system, where her symptoms were often dismissed or misattributed to her mental health diagnosis. She struggled to convey the severity and physical manifestations of her condition, leading to a sense of being unheard and invalidated.

Kathy [21:36]:
"How do I come across as a credible human here so that they listen to my symptoms and not look at the picture that's in front of them?"

Discovery of Proprioception Issues

A breakthrough came when an optometrist identified her double vision and misalignment of her eyes, leading to the diagnosis of BVD (Binocular Vision Dysfunction). This discovery highlighted how her physical symptoms were intertwined with her mental health labels.

Kathy [34:54]:
"So that was all off, real off. But every time I would go to a new doctor... I couldn't put those two together until much later."

Physical Decline and Severe Injury

Despite improvements from her glasses, Kathy continued to experience dizziness and balance issues, culminating in a severe fall that resulted in a broken spine. This incident underscored the critical failure of the medical system to address her holistic health needs.

Kathy [46:07]:
"I cracked it. Luckily, just the side of it, but I had also done a lot of trauma to the tissue in my back."

Turning Point: Medication Adjustment and Ketamine Therapy

Realizing that her medication regimen was exacerbating her symptoms, Kathy decided to wean off Lamictal. This decision led to unexpected physical improvements, which she initially attributed to a placebo effect. Ultimately, she pursued ketamine therapy for treatment-resistant depression, which significantly alleviated her symptoms.

Kathy [59:02]:
"So the ketamine was like a huge... it did help me with my depression."

Reflections and Lessons Learned

Kathy shares profound insights on resilience and the importance of not giving up despite systemic challenges. She emphasizes the necessity for clinicians to recognize and mitigate their biases, ensuring that mental health labels don't overshadow underlying physical health issues.

Dr. Erin Nance [63:24]:
"We have to acknowledge that when we see anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, that clouds our judgment."

Kathy [63:24]:
"If I had just given up, I was just one little thing away from knowing and being able to take back control of my life."

Closing Thoughts and Takeaways

Anna and Dr. Nance commend Kathy for her courage in sharing her story, highlighting the episode’s central message: persistence in seeking answers can lead to breakthroughs even in the face of systemic neglect and stigma.

Anna O'Brien [64:41]:
"Hearing your story has just made me feel a lot more. Less alone."

Kathy [65:12]:
"If we keep going, we can overcome. So thank you so much."

Dr. Erin Nance [63:24]:
"Broadening our diagnostic scope, to think beyond a label that exists on a patient's chart."

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Key Takeaways

1. Intersection of Mental and Physical Health: Kathy's story underscores the intricate relationship between mental health diagnoses and physical symptoms, advocating for a holistic approach in medical assessments.
2. Impact of Stigma and Labels: Mental health labels can inadvertently lead to the dismissal of actual physical health concerns, emphasizing the need for unbiased clinical evaluations.
3. Resilience and Persistence: Despite numerous setbacks and misdiagnoses, Kathy's determination to uncover the truth about her health led to significant improvements, inspiring others to persevere.
4. Role of Clinicians: Medical professionals must be vigilant against biases associated with mental health labels and focus on comprehensive differential diagnoses to ensure all potential health issues are explored.

Notable Quotes

• Kathy [03:12]:
  "I was all over the place, couldn't sleep. They would find me in the neighbor's yard behind sofas."

• Anna O'Brien [00:08]:
  "Think of it as a detective story—only here, the clues are hidden in blood tests, x-rays, and patient files."

• Dr. Erin Nance [11:06]:
  "Bipolar means between two states, the mania and the depression."

• Kathy [63:24]:
  "If I had just given up, I was just one little thing away from knowing and being able to take back control of my life."

Conclusion

"Kathy's Story: The Case of The Mysterious Double Vision" serves as a poignant reminder of the complexities within the medical diagnostic process, especially when mental health intersects with physical health. It calls for greater empathy, comprehensive evaluation, and the dismantling of stigmas that hinder effective patient care.

Transcript

[Anna O'Brien]

Welcome back to another episode of the Medical Detectives podcast. My name is Anna O'Brien, and I am here with the always lovely and very informative Dr. Aaron Nance. How are you doing, Dr. Nance?

[Dr. Aaron Nance]

Hi, Anna. I'm doing great. I'm so excited. Off of the heels of our last episode and all of the wonderful things that you shared with everyone, it was just so amazing to get to know you on a personal level and hear your health story, which I know is going to help so many people.

[Anna O'Brien]

And you know what? It was nice to be the first, because I kind of, like, ripped the band aid off. Right. And showed people that it's not that scary to talk about health, which is actually why we're doing this podcast. And this week's kind of cool because following off, you know, last week's episode, which definitely talked a lot about weight stigma, this week's episode is actually going to talk about a type of stigma that's just as pervasive, which is mental health.

[Dr. Aaron Nance]

We all know that your mental health is part of your overall physical health, but sometimes it feels like that can color the interactions that you have with your doctors.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah. I think it's an easy thing to see on a medical record and just say, like, oh, is this person trustworthy? Which is, like, hard to say, but it's what happens. Right? The doctors look on the thing and they say, oh, she's just. She's just bipolar. I think anyone who has struggled with mental health issues, which I honestly have as part of my journey, can sometimes feel like those come at the forefront of your experience rather than just like, a different shade of color. So I think this story is really great because it really is gonna introduce us to just how detrimental that can be when people don't listen to you because they see information on your record about your mental health.

[Dr. Aaron Nance]

And it's about the power that mental health labels sometimes have in a negative way when interacting with your medical team.

[Anna O'Brien]

Absolutely. I think labels are a beautiful thing because they help us understand, like, common characteristics, but at the end of the day, sometimes they are the very thing that keeps us from getting treated. So with that, I think it's time to just jump right into the story.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Hi, Kathy. Thank you so much for joining us on the medical detectives. I'm Dr. Erin Nance.

[Anna O'Brien]

My name is Anna O'Brien, and I'm here just to hear you out. I'm excited because I love a good. I love a good mystery. Any good mystery I'm in.

[Kathy]

I'm so happy to be here, you guys. I'M excited to tell my story, and I'm. I'm hoping by telling it, maybe, maybe it will help somebody out there.

[Anna O'Brien]

I can guarantee it'll help somebody out there.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Well, Kathy, can you take us back to a point in time when you are little Kathy and what it was like kind of growing up?

[Kathy]

Sure.

[Unknown]

Well, we do really have to go back to the beginning to understand how this medical mystery came to be, because the mystery doesn't start until I'm in my 50s. But the reason I didn't get a diagnosis really starts when I was just a kid.

[Kathy]

So starting out with little Kathy. Little Kathy, at 2 years old, was diagnosed with ADHD, which back then, way back in the wayback machine, was for girls. Was not diagnosed, but I had pretty severe inattention and impulsivity, also hyperactivity.

[Anna O'Brien]

So can I ask a quick question, because I'm genuinely curious, is 2 years old an age that you can diagnose ADHD? Because, like, in my mind, that's something that you would have to be, like, a little older. But, you know, I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But you are a doctor, Ned, so please tell us a bit.

[Kathy]

Yeah, I don't, I don't think it was not normal to be diagnosed, and I think maybe that might help with just how severe. My. Very precocious. I could, you know, speak like, full sentences at nine months. So I had really these incredible verbal capabilities. But then on the other spectrum, I was all over the place, couldn't sleep. They would find me in the neighbor's yard behind sofas. I, I was all over the place. So.

[Anna O'Brien]

So were you, like, hiding or, like, just. Just run away or curious?

[Kathy]

Very curious. Curious and very. Mine sort of never shut off. There was no off switch, never took naps, Just was just constantly going. And my, My parents did not want to medicate me. You know, the, the, the treatment is speed, so they just didn't. They didn't want to treat me. So eventually, though, I learned how to kind of rein it all in. And really, for the rest of my life, all the way through school, it was mostly that, oh, she's really bright and she has so much potential. She just isn't reaching her potential. You know, you're very animated and you're very articulate and you understand what's going on in the world, but you can't do math, you know, so that, that was, that was my adhd. And as an adult, I became an entrepreneur. I owned my own company, ran my own business with, you know, 35 employees. It was very high energy, high stress. So that's what I did. And I got married and I had my kids. And about. About a year. So not immediately after I had my second child, but about a year after she was born, I started to get very depressed, hopelessly depressed. I couldn't function kind of depressed. My business was suffering. I wasn't as good of a mom. And I eventually went and saw a psychiatrist, and he said, well, you have ADHD and you have depression. And so he gave me the typical sort of Prozac and Adderall. So for the first time in my life, I was given those two drugs, and I took them, and I continued just to get more anxious. And so then he added in the classic Xanax. So I had the uppers, and then in the afternoon, when things would get just too bad than the downers, you know, so. And that's the way it went. It just went that way.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Tathy, can you describe what it felt like to go from someone who was really running on all cylinders, having children, running businesses, to all of a sudden feeling this new feeling of depression? And what was that like for you?

[Kathy]

It was otherworldly. I mean, I felt like I wasn't myself. And I know that's such a cliche term. I'm just not myself. But it's such a weird feeling to be a functioning human being and then go to not being able to do anything. It's isolating. And it got to the point where I used to think if I could just maybe drive my car off a, you know, an embankment, not to the point where I would kill myself, but just so that somebody would, like, put me in the hospital and just let me check out of my life for a few days. Just something to just like a reset. I just needed a reset.

[Anna O'Brien]

I have. I have felt that way before. And it is. It is a dark place. It's like, you're not. You don't. You don't want to take that step. That's final. But, yeah, you just want to be alone for a little bit.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

Or not be responsible.

[Kathy]

Yeah. You don't know what you want. You just know that you want to get out of the pain that you're feeling right then. And so that really freaked me out, and I decided to check myself into a hospital. So I checked myself in inpatient, and that's when they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. And I thought that that was so bizarre. The whole sort of inciting incident, I guess, is I stayed up all night doing one of those like scrapbooking things where you're scrapbooking with your friends and you're staying up all night, and then, you know, you go home to your family and kids and try to, you know, continue on, you know, with the day. Yeah, A bad idea when you're in a mental health crisis to do that. And then they sort of thought, well, we think maybe you were. You were on an upper, and you were on a pretty high dose of Prozac. Both of those push you into what could be like a hypomanic phase. And then after the hypomanic or. Or a manic phase, you crash. And that's the. That's the scary part of having bipolar depression. And they said I had bipolar 2. And I kind of was devastated because, you know, I knew. I just knew that that was like a. Like a diagnosis that I just didn't want to carry with me. I knew people that had bipolar disorder, and I just knew that, you know, bipolar one is the more classic.

[Anna O'Brien]

What's the difference between one and two? Because I honestly don't know.

[Kathy]

Yeah. From my knowledge as a layperson, I'll tell you what I think.

[Anna O'Brien]

Love it.

[Kathy]

Dr. Nance wants to say something else, but my understanding when I was going through this was. Was that bipolar 1 was the classic manifestation where you had manic phases that were accompanied by sort of. Not. Maybe not delusional thinking, but maybe inflated sort of ego.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Grandiose.

[Kathy]

Grandiose thoughts and like, going out and spending a ton of money or like just jumping on a plane and flying to Japan without telling anybody. But the bipolar 2 is this hypomanic phase where you're get a lot done, you're really excited, you have lots of ideas, maybe you pick up a crafting project here and there and everywhere, and, you know, things are. Are a little chaotic in your life and maybe you don't sleep or you have a hard time sleeping, and then it's the crash, and I don't. I don't know. I don't know. Dr. Nance, is there a difference between, like, on the crash part, the depression part? Is it different in bipolar I and bipolar 2? I can't remember. I don't know if there's any other.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

From what I recall, it really is more the mania portion. So, you know, bipolar, meaning between two states, the mania and the depression, and exactly what you were talking about, those classic symptoms. And for. It's always the gambling. They always talk about the people who. They gamble huge sums of money. These are the people who are staying awake for Three days in a row in Las Vegas. And it's very impulsive. That's really the level of the mania. And that's typically what we think of the bipolar one. And it's correct. The bipolar two is. It's not at that level. But the depression part, everyone experiences their depression differently. But the point of bipolar, it's this pendulum between the two states and it's usually preceded by the mania and then you go into the depression.

[Anna O'Brien]

So, like, one is more extreme, pendulum shifts potentially than two in a very basic, basic way that probably does not cover everything.

[Kathy]

Yeah, I think that's the way. I think that's where I understand it. Yeah. And I always had, you know, when I'm sitting there and they're giving me this diagnosis, they didn't specify I had one or two. They just said I had bipolar disorder. And so I'm sitting there going, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, I haven't, I don't do any of those things. You know, I'm scrapbooking. I stayed up all night scrapbooking, not.

[Anna O'Brien]

Gambling, you crazy girl. You.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Did you tell them you were doing extreme scrapbooking?

[Anna O'Brien]

Was it like parkour and scrapbooking at the same time?

[Kathy]

It was a little. Okay, maybe it was a little hardcore, but you know, everybody else left the scrapbooking thing that we did, and they were all fine, but I wasn't. And so I go on with my life. They put me on lithium, which is a very common drug. And then they also gave me Lamictal, which is an anti seizure medication that they use for people with bipolar depression. They use it for mood stabilization. And I lived like that for a long time, you know, you know, ups and downs, but nothing extreme, nothing crazy, you know, was able to continue to work and raise my family. And then my kids all left home and. And then I hit a. Another really super depression. Can I ask. Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

Oh, can I ask a quick question? So during that time when you were taking these medications, when there was that big shift, did you feel okay or did you just feel alive? Because I guess what I'm trying to understand is like, were you present in your life or did you feel like the medication just made you? Because I've heard other people say that they sometimes get numb from these medications. So it's like, where do you think those were? Do you think they were working for you or do you think they were just like making life tolerable?

[Kathy]

I. I actually think they were working for me. And I really feel like, yes, at the beginning I felt like they dulled me quite a bit. But I felt after I'd been on them for about five years, which is a long time, you know, that was my new normal. And I still was creative and did fun things and had a lot of. Had joy and enjoyed my kids and enjoyed my family, enjoyed my life.

[Anna O'Brien]

So it felt like a solution. You felt happy with it? Yeah.

[Kathy]

And that's when you start to say, okay, well maybe, maybe that is. Yeah, maybe that is what I have. Right.

[Anna O'Brien]

So, you know, and now it's managed and I can live life normally.

[Kathy]

Everything seems fine going along, trucking along through life. And then my kids leave and I just, I knew the transition was going to be hard. I just didn't know it was going to be that hard. And again, it was debilitating. So, you know, my doctor, he tried messing around a little bit with dosages here and there, and then he switched me to a different medication. And Covid happened. My mother in law got very sick. I had to move her and her husband across the country during COVID to so that we could take care of them. And eventually, not long after we got her home, she took a turn for the worse and then was put on hospice and had a very hard, like three months where I as her caregiver, you know, I mean, it was, it was emotional and it was physically exhausting. It was mentally exhausting dealing with end of life issues, especially with somebody who doesn't want to be die and hasn't come to terms with that in their heart. So that just like tears you apart inside to watch that. So I kept myself busy though, took care of her. You know, she passed away and then I just threw myself into, you know, projects, like outdoor projects and working on the yard and just trying to keep my mind busy while still feeling this horrible sort of depression inside of me. And I got to the point I went back to my doctor, I said, something's got to give. I mean, this is just not letting up. And so he upped my lamictal. And then, you know, once when you're on psychiatric medications, it's really like a chemistry game. And you have to take one medication and then you have to wait. You make a change and then you wait.

[Anna O'Brien]

That would drive me nuts.

[Kathy]

You've waited, you know, two or three months trying to see if it's going to work and then you make, you can't just make a bunch of changes because then you don't know what's good and what's not good, what you need to take and what you need to cut out. So he started fiddling with things, adding things and the things started to increase in. I don't quite know how to say it, but they started to get. The drugs kept getting stronger too. So you know, I put on like they. Then they kind of start different type of drugs. Yeah. Then they're. Then they start to try atypical antipsychotics. Right. So now you've got the big guns. Right. And they just. Those will just knock you out and make blunt you and make you just flat.

[Unknown]

But they did up my lamictal and that did seem to help a little bit.

[Kathy]

But then my symptoms started to get very weird. I started to get dizzy. And not just the kind of dizzy like dizzy. So I hate dizzy because dizzy's so hard to describe. Dizzy like the room spinning? No, dizzy like you were having a head rush or you know, that kind of thing.

[Anna O'Brien]

No, it was like when you twirl in a circle like a whole bunch of times.

[Kathy]

Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

Like you can't walk after it.

[Kathy]

Actually, actually you're right. It was, it was more of that kind of dizzy like your, like your head wasn't. Your head didn't. My brain didn't know where my body was.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah.

[Kathy]

So I'm like going up the stairs. I'm missing stop if the lights are off. I noticed I couldn't, I didn't know where I was.

[Unknown]

Like I couldn't.

[Kathy]

Like you know how you can turn the light off in your kitchen and get to the stairs? You know, you kind of just know the way. And I would be like on the other side of the room. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, what's happening? And I was get to the top of the steps. And it was like I had run a marathon.

[Unknown]

I was tasked with trying to clear an entire like one acre piece of property of blackberries and vines so that I could get my mother in law house put onto the market. And I left doing that over a two day period. Incredibly dizzy, incredibly lightheaded, feeling very sick, just not myself at all. But I had put in a lot of physical labor that day, more than I normally do. And so I thought, you know, this is just what a hard day's labor is going to feel like for you and you're just not the same age anymore. You just need to get it together and you'll have a couple days of rest and then you'll just hit the ground running again. But I never felt very good after that.

I was dizzy, my muscles hurt, my balance was off, which was weird because all of a sudden I just couldn't balance the same way that I used to.

I just sort of felt awful. But I attributed it. I kept thinking it was the, it's, it was the BlackBerry vine.

[Kathy]

I just was lethargic and I'm depressed. So. You know, when you're lethargic and you're depressed, I mean that's. Those two kind of go hand in hand. But it continued to get worse. It continued to get worse. And my, my psychiatrist said, I really want you to see a neurologist. I think you just see a neurologist. So I said, okay, I'm going to go see a neurologist. The neurologist. Finally, you know how long it takes to get into any kind of specialist. Right. So finally get in to see a neurologist. And he, you know, watches me walk and does the neuro exam and you know, he's going through all the things and he's like, yeah, I don't, you know, you look, everything looks good. Everything looks fine. But maybe you should try some physical therapy, like some balance training. And so we'll, we'll, we'll get you in to see a physical therapist. So I get in to see the physical therapist and they Wait, wait, hold up.

[Anna O'Brien]

So they. I'm just trying to process this. So my brain does not like this.

[Kathy]

Yes, I'm sorry, you are dizzy.

[Anna O'Brien]

You are dizzy and you can't see things and they're like. Physical therapy will solve it. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's not acceptable. Anyway, continue.

[Kathy]

No, thank you. Because that does bring me back to when you have a bipolar diagnosis and you're taking the kind of medications that I am taking, including. Oh yeah, well I have a little bit of an antipsychotic, you know, that I take. Yeah, the doctors are looking at you now. I can't, I'm not a, I'm not a doctor, Dr. Nan. But they, they, I think they try to create a picture in their head. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, this person is.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yes.

[Kathy]

You know, this person has depression, you know, she's anxious, she's gone through a lot of things in her life. You know, this is just in her head.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

And I will say, Kathy, that when we are in medical school the way that we diagnose someone is through pattern recognition.

[Anna O'Brien]

Right, Right.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

So you have a six year old male, he's coming in with chest pain, clutching his chest, having shortness of breath. Right. We're worried about heart attack for women. It's a six year old woman, she's coming in with dizziness and lightheadedness. She's having a panic attack.

[Kathy]

Right.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

We are categorizing people based on what is the most likely cause, but something that we are all taught to do but don't necessarily do all the time is think of a differential diagnosis. So you may have the one diagnosis that's screaming in your face. This is what it is. But it's not always that. And sometimes the smaller clues are what you have to pick up on and realize there could be other patterns that exist. They may not be, you know, be the blaring one, but a lot of times those symptoms are very nuanced. And even your description of not being able to turn out, you know, like the light, it reminds me of there is a sense, you know, we have our sight, our smell, our hearing. But proprioception is a sense, which is how we. How we interact with things in a 3D manner. Right. How can I put my hair up in a ponytail without looking at it, but still know that I can put my hair up in a ponytail? How can I make sure that as I take a step, I don't have to look down to take a step. I just know how to take a step down the stairs? And so I'm curious because that's, you know, what I was listening to you describe your symptoms. That's really what I picked up on, was that there was an issue with that sense. But I'm curious if that was brought up at this stage.

[Kathy]

I'm just.

[Anna O'Brien]

I'm all in now. Please tell me more.

[Kathy]

I'm nodding my head like crazy because I'm like, yes. And that's so hard to. To as. As a person who maybe has never had that happen to them before. It's so hard to explain, you know.

[Anna O'Brien]

That I didn't even know that was a thing.

[Kathy]

I didn't actually didn't know what it was called, but.

[Anna O'Brien]

Propriocession.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Proprioception.

[Anna O'Brien]

Proprioception. Word of the day, reception.

[Kathy]

Yeah. So that was all off, real off. But, you know, every time I would go to a new doctor, like a specialist or something like that, I would be like, you know, how do I come across as a credible human here so that they listen to my symptoms and not look at the. Look at the picture that's in front of them, like, close their eyes and don't look at the chart. And you know what I mean? How do I do that? And honestly, I still don't know how to do that. So I continued on.

[Anna O'Brien]

I, you know, I'm mad for you. I'M mad for you right now. Dare they treat you like that?

[Dr. Erin Nance]

She is indignant. She's indignant.

[Kathy]

So I went to physical therapy. You know, they had me try to stand on one foot. I couldn't stand on one foot, like, not even for a second. And just like, fall over. Yeah, I would just fall over. Just timber. I didn't. I mean, that just was so weird. And they were like, yeah, that is kind of weird. That is kind of weird. Meanwhile.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Kathy]

Meanwhile, I start having pain in my shoulder on this side of my neck, and it's so awful. And then going down my back. And then I started getting that, like that sciatic. Like that pain that goes down the back of your leg. And, you know, they're like, oh, you know, you're just tense. You're so stressed. And we're going to do some massage on you. We're going to put, like, little, you know, 10. Like a little unit that, like.

[Anna O'Brien]

Oh, a tens machine.

[Kathy]

Yeah, like a TENS machine. And so I just keep doing all the things.

[Anna O'Brien]

I have one question where you were starting to get pain up here, like, in the shoulders. Was it the same place that it had hurt, like, earlier on when you remember you're telling us during your last oppressive episode that you kind of had had a lot of body pains. Was it the same exact locations or like, a little bit?

[Kathy]

Yeah, it kind of was. It kind of was. I didn't really put those two together, though, until much later. But that's really a good kind of catch that.

[Anna O'Brien]

I think I'm trying to be a detective here. I don't know anything. So I'm like, maybe I can figure it out. Limited medical knowledge.

[Kathy]

That's a really good question. So I'm still complaining. Right. So the neurologist says, maybe you need to go see infectious disease because you were clearing a lot of brush and doing a lot of yard work, and maybe something in that whole thing, you know, is causing this problem.

[Anna O'Brien]

So I'm scared of the outdoors.

[Kathy]

Yeah. You know, they tested me for Lyme and for the whole battery that they could test you for, you know, any kind of crazy thing that could be in the soil or in dust or anything that could be making these symptoms. They tested me for it, and of course, everything comes back negative. And, you know that feeling, like, where you just. Even if it's horrible, like, even if it's. It's the worst news ever, like, oh, we're really sorry, Kathy, you have cancer. You would just be like, oh, thank God I can stop you Know I can at least, I know at least I can name it. And that's so horrible. But when you're so desperate, that's the, that's how desperate you become. When you don't know what's wrong with you, you just get desperate. Please just tell me I have something. Because you begin to feel like maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe I'm fricking crazy. I lost my fricking mind. Right?

[Anna O'Brien]

I mean, I.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

And the unknowing part is what causes anxiety. And so when you present to a doctor, you present as an anxious person, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have anxiety disorder. But sometimes people cannot understand the difference. And I think that what we need to be looking at, you know, certainly in the medical field is the mental toll that the diagnosis journey takes on our patients. Whether it is from the never ending cycle of seeing people and not getting results or being put on, you know, treatments that make you actually feel worse than, you know, then it's supposed to be making you feel better. And that is inflicting a lot of mental anguish on our patients.

[Kathy]

Thank you.

[Anna O'Brien]

Preach.

[Kathy]

Thank you for. Yeah, you're so right. It really does. It really, it really is a mind, excuse my language. It's the mind.

[Anna O'Brien]

You know, I don't think there's any other phrase that fits it. Right?

[Kathy]

Yeah. So I'm, I'm in the id, doctor. I'm telling them, you know, that I in physical therapy and nothing is helping me. And they sort of just like, well, maybe you should go to your primary care. You know, they sort of just like, you know, not they, I don't mean they as an all doctors. I just mean when you don't, when you are a doctor and I think you don't know what to say to somebody, you kind of just kick the can a little bit down the road like maybe she could go and maybe they can help her or something.

[Unknown]

So I went to go visit my son and I got onto the plane and I, I've taken this trip, you know, hundreds and hundreds of times over the last few decades and I could not sit still on the airplane. My leg and my hip hurt so bad. I was sweating. I was in the window seat. I had to try to arrange to get up and kind of walk around. I could not, could not get the pain out of my hip. And it just continued to happen every time I get in a car and take a long trip. My leg was just on foot, fire. And they, doctors thought it was some sort of pinched nerve or sciatica. Kind of problem with your. My sciatic nerve. I'd never had that problem before, although I. I knew people that it had happened to, and it kind of seemed similar to what they were talking about, but it came on out of nowhere and it was unbelievably painful.

[Kathy]

So I went to go see my son. And you could barely get off the airplane. My leg was just killing me. My body is killing me. And I had noticed also that my vision was getting kind of, you know, when I was watching the tv, things were not focusing very well. When I was driving at night, I was kind of having a hard time driving. And, you know, I've had glasses, you know, since I was in high school. So when I. I happen to walk on, you know, down the street, cute glasses in the window, such cute glasses. I'm like, oh, I really want those. Those are adorable. Like, those are so trendy and cute, and I just love them. I went in, I said, I need a new prescription. And they're like, you can see the optometrist. So I see the optometrist and she's going through all the testing and everything, and she says, huh, Wait a minute. Did. Has anybody ever told you you have double vision? And I said, no, never. And she says, you know, oh, do you have a. I see you have adhd. And I'm like, yeah, I have adhd. And she says, nobody's ever told you about it? Nope. She's like, I really want you to see our specialist because he's a neuro optometrist and he specializes in bvd, which BVD and ADHD mimic each other in their symptoms. So if you have brain fog, you get headaches, you are inattentive, you are impulsive. So a lot of the same things that you have when you have adhd, you can get having this. And it's. It's basically because your. Your eyes don't quite line up either vertically, like, like line up this vertically or. Or horizontally, one of the two. So she said, you're walking around just like, not like straight ahead. You're walking with your head slightly to the left. And every time we talk, you slightly turn your head to the left. And I was like, oh, well, that was. That's really interesting. And like, she was really watching my body. And so I met with the, with the doctor and he.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

As I correct my head, yeah, we.

[Kathy]

All turn our head to the side.

[Anna O'Brien]

I'm seriously sitting here being like, I've never noticed if somebody's head tilts one way or another. I'm not observational.

[Kathy]

Well, you sometimes do that when you're paying attention to somebody. You know, you're, like, listening. You turn your head. But. But she said it's like, just like. Like all the time.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Askew.

[Kathy]

It's just slightly askew.

[Anna O'Brien]

Shout out to that woman for paying attention, because I would have never noticed that. I would have been like. And also, like, okay, one question of clarity, because I don't fully understand. What does double vision mean? Is that the tilt, or does it mean you see, like, literally double? Because in my mind, you see the world twice.

[Kathy]

It is like. Like, if you saw lines and it was one line, you would see two lines.

[Anna O'Brien]

Oh. So it's kind of like. Like, you know how when you see, like, things in 3D without the glasses and the lines are just, like, slightly off, and then when you put on.

[Kathy]

The glasses, they're like, everything comes together.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yes, but what.

[Kathy]

Your brain is so amazing, right? Because apparently when they did the testing on me, he said that my vision would be double, and then I would smash it. I would smash the line, and it would become single.

[Anna O'Brien]

You're a superhero.

[Kathy]

My eyes were working, like, double time. All the muscles in my eyes were working double time to make it so it wasn't double vision.

[Anna O'Brien]

So the human body is so cool. It's so cool. Like, the fact that your body did this, like, shout out to your body.

[Kathy]

I know. He's like, you've probably had this for a really long, long time, because you're really good at smashing this image back. You know, you just really. It's really, like, nanoseconds, you know? So the. The correction for this is prisms in your glasses.

[Anna O'Brien]

Wait.

[Kathy]

And so they did the testing, and he's like, yeah, you kind of have one of the strongest prisms that I've seen ever. Like, this is pretty strong. He said, but this should help your dizziness. And I put those glasses on and. Oh, my God, I cried. I just cried. I. Everything was so clear, and I wasn't as dizzy, and so I went home. They said, also, because you turn your head a little bit, you know, like, you're turning your head a little bit to focus on things. It's creating a misalignment in your spine. And so.

[Anna O'Brien]

No way.

[Kathy]

So you're. You're. That's why your whole, like, side of your body is feeling a little bit off, or you're having pains on your muscles and stuff, because you're not quite. You're not quite walking around, like, with a straight back.

[Anna O'Brien]

You're kind of like, so it wasn't anxiety, it was the fact that your eyes were trying to just see normal.

[Kathy]

Yeah, it was. It was weird. It was so weird. But I was so hopeful and so happy. I got these glasses, I go home, I get off the plane. I'm feeling really good. My leg doesn't hurt as bad. You know, I get home and I, you know, I'm walking up the stairs and I'm exhausted, and I'm like, well, that didn't stop. And things were better, like, a little bit. But I was still. I still couldn't stand up on one foot. I still couldn't close my eyes and know where I was in space. And I was still having fogginess and just sort of not with it, not altogether there.

[Anna O'Brien]

So that wasn't it. I mean, at least as far as we know at this point.

[Kathy]

Yeah, that's not it. It wasn't it. And I. Well. And I said, well, maybe. Maybe it's just like, I needed the. I noticed that I was not able. Like, I. I did this for about three months, and then I went. I flew back to him because, I mean, I had to get on a plane. Like, can you imagine? I mean, the cost was like, oh, wait, so this.

[Anna O'Brien]

This guy's not even here? It's like, no, by your son. Right.

[Kathy]

I just happened to be at. I mean, it was complete kismet that I had run into him, that I walked in of all the places in the whole. There's not a lot of these people around that specialize in this. So I went back to him and he said, yeah, your prescription has gotten worse. What? Worse to the point where it's not just a little worse. Like, we need to change your prescription and these glasses with these prisms and I don't have vision insurance, so, I mean, it was.

[Anna O'Brien]

How long had you had the glasses for before you had to go get new ones?

[Kathy]

I want to say it was between like three and five months.

[Anna O'Brien]

Whoa.

[Kathy]

Yeah. That's wild, right?

[Dr. Erin Nance]

But that rapid change in vision. What. What did the neuro ophthalmologist say about that?

[Kathy]

He was the only one that put me on to my next thing to try, which was he said, I am wondering if you actually have something wrong with your ears. Like, there's like this. Tiniest. Tiniest bones in your body are in your ears, and these little bones can get a crack on them, and it can cause you a lot of, like, vertigo kind of stuff or can cause all kinds of weird stuff. So I thought, well, you know, I guess that's My next thing to try is I'm going to go look for that. So in between this time, in between getting the glasses and getting the next set of glasses, I had set up an appointment with a. At a major university with a neuro.

[Unknown]

Ophthalmologist, because this last doctor was a neuro optometrist. And so my other doctors thought a neuro ophthalmologist might know what's going on.

I called the office, I made an appointment, and it was for. Oh, gosh, it was several months. It was a few months it took me to get the appointment. So I waited the several months and then I actually made a trip to go and had to get on the plane again and schlep all the way there. And once I was there, I was in their office. And when I got there and I was in the waiting room and I'm in this big university and I feel like, okay, I'm finally going to get into the right place and they're going to be able to tell me what's going on with me, what's going on with my eyes, what's going on with my balance. Why is this happening? I'm going to get answers because these are the people that you go to. And I went into the exam room. I was very hopeful. And he looked at me for a few minutes and said, I'm sorry, I can't help you. And I. I opened my mouth to say something like, I. I came all this way. I've waited so long for this appointment. I wanted to say that out loud. And I. I was so.

It was so, like. I just fawned. I just fawned in that moment because I. I had built everything up in my head that he would be able to fix me or at least tell me what was going on. Because sometimes you just want to know what's wrong with me. If you just had a reason of why things were the way they are, maybe you could cope with it better. And so I just sat there with my mouth open. I couldn't speak, and I was so angry. And I left and I just put it in a box and put it away in my head because it was the most hopeless feeling to be with somebody that could help you. And they just looked at you and said, there's nothing they could do. And I couldn't tell if it was because of my mental health issues or the medications that I was on or all the doctors that I had seen. I couldn't tell what it was. I couldn't tell if it was me.

[Kathy]

It's kind of like he just looked.

[Unknown]

At me and said, I can't help you. And.

You never think that you're going.

To be in a situation like that when you're a strong, capable person, that you'll be able to stand up for yourself and say, wait a minute, will.

You please come back and explain yourself to me? I have come all this way, and.

I just need an explanation.

And you think in that moment that.

You'Re going to be able to stand up and say that. And I couldn't.

I was shocked.

[Kathy]

I think I was.

[Unknown]

I've been through so much, and you get to a point where you're so beaten down.

You're so beaten down, and you question yourself, like, is this in my head? Am I.

Is this all in my head? Have I. Have I completely made this all up?

[Kathy]

So I left there, and I was just devastated. And my depression just took on a whole life of its own.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Because was there any other pathway for. At that time, did you feel like there was any other pathway?

[Kathy]

The. The ear. The ear thing was the next step to go to. And so. And I was going to do that definitely. But, you know, I hadn't even. Like, it was. I had to find the person, you know, because this doctor that I saw that told me to go to him, you know, he's in a completely different. He's out of state. So I can't go. I can't go. See, I gotta find somebody kind of where I am. You know, it's a whole process. So we live in a real rural area, like way out in the boonies. Can't see your neighbors kind of thing. And I'm, you know, walking around the house, and I was doing some. Not remodeling, but I had. I gotten some stuff out of some boxes. I had about four, five or six big boxes, and I. I was moving them around and I had to go and answer the phone. I went to go grab my phone, and I moved the boxes at the same time with my foot, and I went backwards, like, just timber, backwards. And as I was falling backwards, I knew that I was not in a good place. I knew there was a piece of low furniture behind me, but I didn't know where I would hit that. But you have, like, so many things happen, like right in that. That split second where something bad is, you know, some. Oh, this is going to be bad, and you know that you're in a bad place. And sure enough, I hit right on the corner of this. Of this low cabinet. It was like a TV Cabinet. And I knew immediately I had done something very bad. It hit me. It hit me square in the spine. And I have. Luckily, I had been going to grab my cell phone, so it was right there. I had to call. Nobody's around. Like, there's. There's nobody around. You know, I can't, like, call a neighbor. I'm. So I called 911 and the fire department comes. I can't even let them, you know, I don't even know if the door is unlocked. Thank God it was unlocked. I didn't know how they were going to get in. I couldn't move. Like, I was. I was. I was down. They get me on a gurney, take me to the hospital. Never had an ambulance ride before, so that was. Was crazy. Get to the hospital. And I did. I had broken my spine, my. A vertebra.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Oh, my God.

[Kathy]

I cracked it. Luckily, just the side of it. But I had also done a lot of trauma to the tissue in my back. So I thought, gosh, you know, I'm not. I'm not making this up, you guys, you know?

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah. It's like, you can't win.

[Kathy]

I'm not. How can you. How could you. How can your mind make you lose balance and you break your back just moving a box with your foot. Just picking your foot up off the ground and moving a box and you go over backwards.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

I'm curious, Kathy, at this point, because you are presenting to the hospital for the back problem. Right, the broken back. But did anyone pay attention to why you broke the back in the first. First place?

[Anna O'Brien]

No, of course not.

[Kathy]

No. They looked at my medications, I think, and they said, yeah, well, I don't know.

[Anna O'Brien]

I am so mad. I just. I just this. I'm a. Fascinated because I really want to know what this is. And I feel like this is. This is like a mystery, which is so fun. It's way more fun than I thought it would be, which is weird. I'm not delighting in your. In your trauma. I'm just saying it's fascinating where we've gone on this journey so far and we're not even there yet. And I think that's like, how many specialists have you seen at this point? You've seen a psychiatrist, you've seen an eye doctor, you've seen. Oh, you're going to see an ear doctor. You're obviously now seeing a back doctor.

[Kathy]

Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

Right. You've seen a neurologist.

[Kathy]

Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

Like, what's. Five people have seen you? And all of them are like, oh, no.

[Kathy]

Yep, yep. So yeah, it. I can laugh about it now. So that's good news, right?

[Anna O'Brien]

Gotta find humor in the dark. Right through sometimes.

[Kathy]

Totally do. I mean, if you can't laugh about it, I mean. So I. I was kind of laid up then and got more depressed and more depressed and more depressed and became suicidal. And that was very scary. But I would. I just felt like I couldn't live this way. I just couldn't continue to live this way, and I was hopeless. I just felt like I'd seen so many people and so many of these really smart people had not been able to figure this out, and I just, again, I just. I'm like, I'm crazy. Am I crazy? Is this. And I don't even seeing the word crazy. It's just. I hate that word. I really hate that word. But see, it's the only descriptive that I can think of. Is there something wrong with my brain that I am inventing? This is. Are the. Is this like another, like, you know, what do they call it? Doctrine? It's like, somatic, you know, like psychosomatic. Yeah, yeah. Like, is this, like, in your head? You know, my. Yeah. And.

[Unknown]

And the, you know, the other.

[Kathy]

The other tripod was kind of teetering. You know, when you've been depressed for this long and there's something wrong with you, the people around you start to get a little tired of it. Living with somebody who's chronically ill, you know, it's. It's hard. So having to listen to that all the time just gets really hard. When you have an invisible illness that you can't. You look fine on the outside. Why are you so effed up? It's just hard for people's brains, I think, to have to live with that. So when you're. You can't even get onto a Reddit or anything to try to get support because you're. Well, actually, I'm going to.

[Anna O'Brien]

And then it's like, can you trust Reddit?

[Kathy]

Right, Right.

[Anna O'Brien]

Sometimes.

[Kathy]

It's like, sometimes.

[Anna O'Brien]

Is that the best resource?

[Kathy]

I. I don't know, man. I don't know. So I. I actually did get on. I did get on Reddit.

[Anna O'Brien]

Oh, okay. This gets juicier.

[Kathy]

I did get on Reddit, so I'm so depressed.

[Anna O'Brien]

Dr. Dance is like, oh, no.

[Kathy]

She's like, oh, God.

[Anna O'Brien]

Reddit doctors.

[Kathy]

Google, Google. The Google. So I. I got on Reddit because I'm depressed. I'm super depressed. What can I do about this depression? And I started reading about ketamine.

[Anna O'Brien]

Okay.

[Kathy]

And I started looking at the studies and I actually found a clinic in my town, close to my town, that had IV ketamine therapy for treatment resistant depression, which is what they were telling me that I heard.

[Anna O'Brien]

Okay.

[Kathy]

So I said, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm. I'm. I mean, it sounds like to me as this sort of like, like straight laced or, you know, you know what I mean? But I am like in my 50s. I'm a mom. Never really done anything fun, you know.

[Anna O'Brien]

I was a person who didn't drink Till I was 21 because it was illegal.

[Kathy]

That's how I was kind of that way, you know, I was like, oh, you can't do this, can't do that.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah.

[Kathy]

So this was a huge kind of leap for me, like, oh, God, you know, ketamine. Okay. So they said, okay, well, so we're going to get you started, but you have to get off of one of your medications because it works. I don't know if I have this right, Dr. Nance, but it works on the same neural pathways or something or some channel or something like that. This drug might cancel out some of the benefits of the ketamine.

[Unknown]

I started to get off of my Xanax, which is hard to get off of, but I was very motivated. But the Lamictal is even harder to get off of because it can cause seizures. It is a seizure medication used for mood stabilization for people that have bipolar depression. And so you have to be very, very careful. You have to be weaned off of it very systematically, very slowly. And I had taken it again for so long, it just didn't. I was ready to get off of it, so they were going to wean me off of the Mictal. And I remember being in my garden and working and worried that I was going to be. I'm going to be, like, hurting tomorrow, I told myself. But I kept going because it felt so good just to be outside and in the garden and working.

And this is before I did the ketamine. This is just after getting off the lamictal.

And so I just continued to work and then I went to bed and I woke up the next morning and I didn't feel that bad and I felt a little sore, but. But kind of a normal amount of sore. So didn't think very much about it was the sun was shining. I was excited to get out and do another day. So worked again in the yard, put it around the house, and. And the next day I felt very sore for two days in the yard, but not that Bad. And so I kind of just went on about my life. A few more days went by, and then I decided I'm going to go do one more day of, like, weeding, which is really hard for me because when I bend over and then I go to stand back up again, that's when I fall over. So it's almost like I have to gradually get up on my hands and my knees and then put one leg on the ground and then get up on, you know, get three quarters of the way up and then get all the way up before I try to. I can't, like, get down and stand up. But I always forget, you know, because you. Because I didn't live my whole life that way, so I would always forget and just kind of go stand straight back up again after bending down and not think a thing of it until I was, like, going over backwards. So I started to weed.

[Kathy]

I was weeding.

[Unknown]

I was making sure that I was taking care of my body. And then about 3/4 of the way through it, I was going to get up and answer the phone really quick. I stood up super fast from weeding, and I stopped myself about three quarters.

[Kathy]

Of the way up.

[Unknown]

Like, I'm going to fall over. I cannot believe I just did that. And I didn't fall and I didn't feel dizzy, and I was dumbfounded. And then every day after that, I just kept noticing more and more and more that I could do things. And then kind of my final thing was I was. I had to leave. And when I go to leave, I give the cat. I wanted to make sure the cat had a bed. But in order for this bed to be put into the barn, I had to climb up a ladder to secure.

[Kathy]

This bed to this, because it's a barn cat.

[Unknown]

So I got the ladder out and I said, I'm just. I don't have to go very far up the ladder, so I'm going to stick it right close to this monkey rack, which was, like, filled with tools. And so I should be able to, like, hold onto the monkey rack and hold onto the ladder and I wouldn't fall backwards, which is what had been happening. So I started to climb up there and I. I didn't feel like I was going to fall backwards. I was going really slow and holding on and trying not to lean forward, because leaning forward, like when you're going up a ladder, you're leaning forward. It's that sort of motion that would make me go backwards. So instead of that, because I was holding onto the monkey rack, I was more like up and down. And I was able to get. Throw the bed up there and stand on that ladder for a little while and realize that I did not feel like I was going to fall backwards. So I got down and move the ladder. And that was kind of the last, like, major body, you know, physical thing that I did. When I finally thought to myself, this has got to be. This has got to be the medication. This has to be the lamental. I mean, what, what, what else could make me miraculously feel better? And I couldn't tell if that. Okay, I keep thinking, oh, this is just placebo, right? Like, I'm motivated and I'm happy and I'm excited about this and my adrenaline is up. And so this is like a placebo effect of get having these small wins. And no, I don't think it was the placebo effect because then I was able to, you know, days and days after, until finally I was completely weaned off of the medication and I started the ketamine that I realized that it was the Lamictal this whole time. And that's when I went and I went and gone on all the medical journals, like, not on, just like the things that you see. Like, no, I was going on to Lancet. I was getting into the PubMed Journal articles of Lamictal. And what are the side effects? And the side effects I had were very rare, but they are side effects of this medication, of too much of this medication, and it wasn't in it. What's strange is it wasn't that much more medication than I had been on for 20 years. It was just that little, little tiny bit more that pushed me over the edge and turned me into a completely different person. At first I was super excited that I feel cured, but then I had.

Just pure grief that I had spent two years of my life, two whole years of my life just feeling this way. I lost out on so much. I had said no to so many things. I had stopped doing things. I had stopped trying. I had lost confidence in myself and who I was as a person. It had made me depressed in ways that were so profound to the point that I needed ketamine.

You know.

[Kathy]

If it wasn't.

[Unknown]

If it hadn't been for the ketamine, I don't know, I might still be there right now.

I might still be feeling that right now. So the ketamine was like a huge.

It did help me with my depression.

So, you know, spoiler alert. That, that really did. That did really help me. But just getting off of that lamictal helped me so much more.

[Anna O'Brien]

So this whole time it's just wild to me that that was never ever looked at when it is a known symptom. Like you would think that like a psychiatric doctor would be like, well, we did bump this up. Right. And that's when the changes started.

[Kathy]

I just.

[Anna O'Brien]

How does that happen, Dr. Nance? Like, how does someone not look at a change like that and see the impact? Like, I just, I don't know.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

What I think is probably the larger issue with your story, Kathy, is that no one doctor really took ownership of your problem. Right. And no one said, I am going to get to the bottom of this.

[Anna O'Brien]

Yeah.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

And it may mean that I'm going to send you to other specialists and they may rule out some of these pathways, but in the end it seemed like you didn't have that one person who was keeping score of everything, who was making sure that all of the check, the boxes, you know, were checked. Now, now, Kathy, what I'm curious is once you self realize that the lamictal was the issue, did you have any discussion with the psychiatrist over what happened?

[Kathy]

Yeah, I had a psychiatrist who left. Left and moved to a different state. And I, he recommended this other, the psychiatrist I've been seeing that, that bumped up the lamictal. And I was, had been thinking about getting a different psychiatrist. And at the very same time that this was happening, he did not want me to do ketamine, by the way. He was like, don't, don't do ketamine. That's a really bad idea. But I, I felt like I really had to listen to myself in that moment. You know, I just needed to, I needed to trust myself for a second and I had to do, I was desperate to do something. And so I know this felt like a desperate move and it cost a lot of money, it took a lot of resources, but I, I, I did it. And then after I did it, I went ahead and that my psychiatrist moved back to my town and he agreed to take me back on. And so it turned out, like I told the psychiatrist that this happened and his answer was sort of like, oh, well, you know, that's so good that you found.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

What would you say is the takeaway for listeners who have been enthralled by your story? The, the courage it takes for you to come on a show like this and share this story with people that you don't know. What would you say to everyone who feels like they might have been like you at some point in your journey?

[Kathy]

Yeah. As cliche as it sounds is, is to just not give up, you know, as hard as it can be and feel, to give up, to just keep. Keep going.

[Anna O'Brien]

Because, Kathy, I just want to say.

[Kathy]

That you trying to fix the symptom of depression ended up allowing me to. To know what was wrong with me. And that is something, you know, and I'm still working on that. But if I had just given up, you know, I was just one little thing away, one tiny little thing away from knowing and being able to take back control of my life again and not let this control me or the feelings that I have about it control me.

[Dr. Aaron Nance]

And I think a lesson for clinicians is that we have to have an awareness that we are being biased. When we see a psychiatric illness on the chart, I think we have to acknowledge that when we see anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, that clouds our judgment. Not saying that it's right or wrong, but sometimes I think it's to the detriment of looking deeper into a problem, because we always have the ability to go back to. To that diagnosis. And so I think it's about broadening our diagnostic scope, to think beyond a label that exists on a patient's chart.

[Anna O'Brien]

Cassie, if it gives you any peace at all, I will say that I did not come into this thinking I would be emotional or that this would speak to me so personally. But in this conversation, hearing your story has just made me feel a lot more. Less alone. And I'm sure that there are other people listening who have felt the things you felt, maybe in different contexts. My context isn't the same as yours, but it's nice to not feel alone.

[Kathy]

Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

And I don't think there's a lot of people in my life personally that understand that feeling.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Anna O'Brien]

So to hear somebody else's story and hear the honesty and the fragility in that, I just want to say thank you for sharing that, because hopefully this will empower other people to not give up on themselves, to not think that they're crazy, for lack of a better word, and to keep fighting for health. Because when you feel good, it is worth it. Right. And I think you're a great example of that. And I just want to say thank you.

[Kathy]

Thank you so much, because I didn't.

[Anna O'Brien]

Expect to be bawling my eyes out, but now here I am. How did we go from scrapbooking parkour to me, like, bawling my eyes out? Not fair. I really.

[Kathy]

That's what I. I'm. I hope that it gives. I hope that it can give people some hope. Even if it's. Even if my problem is not their problem. Just knowing that we can. If we keep going, we can overcome. So thank you so much. I really appreciate being on and being able to share this. Thank you.

[Anna O'Brien]

Thanks for coming on and being so.

[Dr. Erin Nance]

Thanks Kathy.

[Anna O'Brien]

The Medical Detectives is a soft skills media production produced by Molly Biscar. Sound designed by Shane Drauss. If you have a medical story you'd like to see featured on the Medical Detectives, please email it to Stories themedical Detectives podcast dot com.