Pink Walls: Depression, Ketamine, and Chronicity

After an episode of painful ovarian torsion, I accepted a surgeon's counsel to undergo a hysterectomy/oophorectomy at the age of forty-six. The sudden menopause this surgery brought on intensified a chronic depression. Several decades later, after undergoing ketamine infusion treatments for my depression, I recognized that surgery as an experience of iatrogenic harm, part of the chronic inequities of treatment based on gender, race, and region that are part of the history of gynecological medicine.