1st Day of Treatment

The treatment went well today. We arrived at the hospital at 7am and Emma had an IV line put in by 7.30am. She was taken to the infusion room and given a lazy-boy chair to sit in. She had with her a pillow and blanket, and mp3 player, so she was quite comfortable. She was first given Midazolam at the beginning of the infusion and again half way through, this is to combat potential side effects of the ketamine. Emma tolerated the 4 hour ketamine infusion well and tomorrow they will be scaling up the dose quite a bit. It's now 3 hours after the treatment and she is sleeping back at the house. The staff have been really good to Emma and making a fuss of her. Emma is Dr Schwartzman's first NZ patient. I have just read that Dr Schwartzman has been judged America's top Pain Physician and one of the top 3 Neurolgists in 2007-2008 (as judged by 50,000 expert physicians), so we think she is in good hands! Dr S. has said to Emma (and us) quite a few times that she is "one tough kid".