Healing Trauma with Pelvic Health & Ketamine-Assisted OT

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Transcript

New and seasoned OTs are finding their calling in pelvic health. After all, what's more ADL than sex, peeing, and poop? But here's the question. What does it take to become a successful, fulfilled, and thriving OT in pelvic health? How do you go from beginner to seasoned and everything in between? Those are the questions, and this podcast will give you the answers.

 We are inspired OTs. We are out of the box OTs. We are Pelvic Health OTs.

 I'm your host, Lindsay Vestal, and welcome to the OTs in Pelvic Health Podcast. .

Lindsey: 
Kellyn, thank you so much for being a guest on the OTs for Pelvic Health Podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation with you today. 

Kellyn:
I'm so happy to be here.I'm really, really excited about this topic, and I just can't wait for other OTs to learn about it. So, yeah. Thanks for having me.

Lindsey:  
Amazing. Amazing. Well, without further ado, we have so much to chat about, so let's get into it. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your journey into occupational therapy, and what led you to focus on trauma and pelvic health? 

Kellyn:
Yeah. So, that's a really simple question, Lindsay. However, I have a winding path through my occupational therapy experience, so, but yeah, I kind of always knew I wanted to be an occupational therapist from the time I was 17. We did a tour of a hospital, saw the inpatient rehab floor, and I was just sold on OT. And so, I graduated OT school at UTMB in Galveston, Texas, which, interestingly, there's a couple of other classmates of mine that are in pelvic health as well. 

Lindsey:  
Oh, wow.

 Kellyn:
Yeah, and I saw two of them at the pelvic health retreat last year. I was like, hey, guys. So, as soon as I graduated OT school, I went into geriatrics. I love geriatrics. It's just like my bread and butter. I had worked as a nurse assistant, you know, all through undergrad, and I just really had a heart for it. And I did that for seven years total, actually. So, when I had the home birth of my first daughter, I learned about you. And it was one of my classmates who introduced me into pelvic health. I said, yeah, why not? Took OT Pioneers, and I was sold. So, that was in 2020. I took OT Pioneers. I was like, I'm doing this, definitely. It was right up my alley, because even though I had a home birth, I felt like I had excellent care, honestly. Nothing remarkable about my birth, but at the same time, I still felt like something was missing. You know, we just don't get enough, right? You get that six-week postpartum visit, and they're like, you're good. Looks good. I'm like, I don't feel like everything's great, you know? So, I was actually pregnant with my second, and in the middle of actually the beginning of COVID, when I took your course, and I was able to implement all of the, you know, pelvic health principles into preparation for birth and my postpartum journey, and it just made all of the difference. So, we moved right after the birth of my second, had a great home birth, and my husband got a job in the Hampton Roads community in Newport News, Virginia. So, we unexpectedly moved, and my plan was, we're going to get there, I'm going to go back to work PRN in skilled nursing, and I'm going to start my pelvic health practice. Well, I had gone through COVID in skilled nursing, and so I walked in, and wow, I just realized, I need to work on myself. Like, I had my own trauma and PTSD from that experience. And so, I actually left, didn't go back, and I dug my heels in and made my pelvic health practice work. I was like, this has got to happen, it has got to happen now, because I can't go back. So, I had my own interest, really, in trauma, because I knew something, like, I needed to do some work on myself after, you know, everybody has something with COVID. For me, it was just, it was really hard being an OT in skilled nursing. And so, I actually did trauma therapy. I did EMDR, brain spotting, and, you know, I just was going along my own path as I'm treating pelvic health patients who are coming to me, and it's like, you know, you're a magnet, right? Our patients are a mirror to ourselves. So, I was getting a lot of patients who had lots of trauma, right? Birth trauma, severe sexual trauma, and they were coming to me, and they trusted me, you know, with their care. And I became really interested in the nervous system, how that is affecting, you know, their responses during our pelvic health interventions. And it was happening often enough that I felt like I needed the skills to be able to address whatever came up right then and there. And, you know, of course, I made referrals to trauma therapy and, you know, psychotherapy and all that, but I wanted to be able to serve my patients. And so, yeah, that's what got me into trauma. And, you know, how it's so closely connected with pelvic health dysfunction. And I've just kept going since. 

Lindsey: 
That's amazing.Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. Just such an incredible story and so many twists and turns, right, that, like, we couldn't predict it, but I think based on the smile that I see on your face right now, it never would have happened the way they were supposed to. 

Kellyn:
Absolutely.

 Lindsey: 
You found your niche. Speaking of which, talk with us a little bit about you do ketamine? Ketamine, uh-huh. Ketamine-assisted therapy.Talk to us about how that came to be. 

Kellyn:
Well, again, it's another winding road, but long story short, my husband is a nurse in Massachusetts. So he has a CRNA who, you know, has experience working in the operating room, you know, doing anesthesia. They're independent anesthesia providers. And so he always had an interest in ketamine therapy. Like myself, he's very, has a very entrepreneur mindset and always wanted to, you know, have a private practice and be his own boss, make his own schedule. And, you know, he had his own level of burnout after COVID and we have the opportunity to dive in and make his dreams come true of going for his private practice as a ketamine therapy provider. So I did not know anything about ketamine until this, just like my husband, once something gets into his head and that's, I'm just, I'm the same way. So what can I say? We make a great team. But, you know, it was like, this is happening. And I just knew that I had a role to play in it. I did not know what it would look like because as far as I know, there's no other OTs doing it. But I do know that I believe in the holistic approach. And I know that at the time, I just didn't see how, even though there's very promising outcomes and a lot of evidence for ketamine therapy, I don't believe in medication alone, period. And I, you know, the OT in me was just like screaming to me, I've got to provide something for these patients. And so all of the research is ketamine assisted psychotherapy, which I am not a psychotherapist. But the more I dug in and learned, the more I realized like these folks could really, like really benefit from the same things we're doing in pelvic health, nervous system regulation, sensory integration, like emotions are a sensory experience. So why are we not giving people the tools that they could use the rest of their lives as an adjunct to the ketamine? And I honestly didn't know what that was going to look like until we had our first patient, who was a friend because we were like too scared to actually make somebody pay to be the first patient, right? She was a friend and had a diagnosis and she would benefit from our services. And she gets in there and had this great plan of like all the things I was going to do. And it all went out the window. The second that our treatment started, I did a pelvic health session. Obviously, I didn't do internal work or anything like that. But I was like, I only know how to be an occupational therapist. I fully believe in pelvic health and I've seen it work for patients experiencing trauma. And it just naturally unfolded. So I did, you know, showed her the, you know, stacking your posture and how you're able to get a nice diaphragmatic breath, you know, when you do it correctly versus go back to your regular posture, not try to breathe. Can't do it, right? And so then getting on the table during the abdominal assessment. And it just truly became like the same as a pelvic health session. And it worked amazing. So that's how we started. And it looks like just a little sidestep from your traditional pelvic health OT sessions, really. 

 Lindsey: 
So for those of us that aren't familiar with ketamine, tell us a little bit about not necessarily like the tradition or like the usual path, how it's used. Give us a little snapshot into a session with you and sort of what that would look like.

 Kellyn:
Yeah. So, well, ketamine is an anesthetic. It's been around since the 70s and they call it a dissociative anesthetic, which that's a fancy way of saying you have a psychedelic experience based on the dose that you're given. So they, you know, it's a very, very safe drug. It is, you know, on the WHO's list of essential medications. It is extremely important and it lost its patent in the 70s. All to say that there's no money to be had, you know, in big pharma for ketamine. So it's not covered by insurance. And that's just what I believe. But there's a pattern there. So ketamine, it works with your glutamate receptors, which are excitatory neurotransmitter, and it like ramps that down. So in the sense of what's happening with the medication, you become very calm. But at the same time, your subconscious opens up and you have a psychedelic experience. So we know that when we have things stored in traumatic memory, we don't necessarily have direct access to that. And so those things may come forth. However, you're in a calm and regulated nervous system. And you're able to actually reprocess and integrate. And that's just based on the medication, right? So what we do for the ketamine assisted occupational therapy is an hour before each session, they come to me and they do not have any medication in their system. And we work on nervous system regulation, sensory integration, emotional processing. It's very individualized. So in the beginning, it's all about reestablishing felt safety in the body.Because if we don't feel safe, what are we ever going to be able to process, right? Totally. So felt safety. It's very similar to how I would do a public health session, which I typically did not do internal first session. I liked to let people feel comfortable with me and let them know that I was going to respect their pace and respect not only what they were telling me and get explicit consent, but also what is your body telling me? Because how far are we going to be able to go if, you know, we do this whole push through and get it done kind of deal? Doesn't work, right? So they come to me for an hour. The first session really starts with the three-dimensional breathing and body scan to relax the body before they go into the ketamine session. I do very hands-off their first session because I like to show them that they can actually activate their parasympathetic by themselves. They have the power to do it on their own, hands-off. Yeah, yeah, because that's the whole thing. It's like when you're struggling with chronic pain, mental health conditions, there's a sense of powerlessness.And more than anything, I'm showing people that they actually have the power within themselves to heal, right? And as we go through this series, the ketamine is like the colleague I never realized I needed. It actually ramps down the nervous system so much that people's layers, you know, the layers of tension patterns they have, tension patterns that are so automatic that they can't consciously connect with it and relax it, those go away. They just melt. I don't know how else to explain it. So I'm able to go progressively deeper, both physically and emotionally, whether it's treating pain or mental health, each session, and their window of tolerance becomes huge. They're able to cope with the increased challenge by, you know, I use pain or discomfort, I'll say, because we don't treat pain with pain, but use discomfort as a challenge to continually upregulate their skills at, you know, relaxing the body and using the three-dimensional breath, right, and noticing the urge to resist and push me away, and instead doing the opposite. That's how we learn new patterns of movement and behavior and all that, right? Totally. And so I'm able to just go layer by layer each session and a little bit deeper each session. By the end of our seven series, we have seven sessions in three weeks, by the end of the series, I'm telling you, my patients, they come, lay on the table, independently do their 3D breath, their body scan, and then they tell me where to go.

Lindsey: 
Wow. 

Kellyn:
And they're usually right. So, you know, it's really awesome.

 Lindsey: 
Has there ever been a situation where a client got more anxious, got more nervous, you know, like, forgive the colloquial saying, but like a bad trip, you know, like, have you ever been in an experience like that? 

Kellyn:
Absolutely. And in fact, that's part of the education that I do in the first session. So I pull out my, you know, autonomic nervous system bell curve, and I'm show them exactly what they may experience. So we know that if somebody is in a really dissociative state, so if they're in, you know, in the dorsal vagal shutdown, right, they're not connected to their body. You know, they have an increased pain tolerance because they suppress those pain signals. And they've also suppressed emotion, experience, you name it, right? And when we reconnect, the first step is reconnecting the body and the brain. When we do that, there is a really good chance that when all those signals come back up, you're going to feel really uncomfortable. First of all, you might have increased pain. You might have increased agitation, anxiety, and all the bad things. And I always let my patients know, you're right on track. Because that means you're getting the signals. Like, now we can do something with them, right? And in terms of a bad trip, in ketamine-assisted therapy, we call that a challenging experience. But yes, people do have challenging experiences. And they can be really scary for that person. And that's where we get consent, explicit consent, prior to every infusion to use therapeutic touch during, right? Because people move into an altered state. And while we're not doing any kind of therapy during the infusion, most of the time, people just need a hand to hear, you're safe. You're safe. And then they just move into it and move right through it. Those challenging experiences are not coincidence. They mean something to that person. And many times, it's exactly what they needed to experience to overcome some traumatic memory. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. I have a saying, the more challenging the experience, the more healing you're going to have after. Yeah.

Lindsey: 
Does the drug leave their body by the time they leave your session? 

Kellyn:
Yeah, so, no. The short answer is no. But ketamine is a really fast-acting drug. So, it's out of your system within eight hours. And most of the time, the infusion is 40 minutes, and people recover within 30 minutes and are ready to go home. And obviously, they're not able to drive, but they're able to walk. You know, I prepared myself as an occupational therapist, like, fall risk, oh my goodness. No, they're fine. They just get up and walk out like they're ready to go. Now, the really, really cool part that I haven't touched on about ketamine is it increases your neuroplasticity. So, it gives you about three days to something a week of increased neuroplasticity in the brain. Which, whoa, that's like my dream come true, right? And so, our treatment protocol is really like boot camp. You know, as an occupational therapist, I'm like, what are you doing? Not, what are you thinking? Not, what are you doing? What behavioral changes, what occupations are you doing during this time? Because it needs to be what you want to see at the end of the day.Like, whatever you want your life to look like, what you want to feel like, what you want to be doing, you need to do that now, you know? It's amazing. It really shouldn't be possible, but it is. And it's like, I don't know, this is just so cool.

 Lindsey: 
How do clients learn about you? 

Kellyn:
So, it's a really good question. Ketamine therapy is really up and coming. You know, in the past 10 years has gained a lot of traction. So, depending on where you're at, ketamine clinics are all over the place. Arizona, I think they've got a pretty robust ketamine therapy following in Arizona. Colorado, obviously, all about it. But here, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, it is up and coming, I will say. There's a lot of education that needs to be done. As you know, we have a, you know, we consider psychedelics taboo. And, you know, they've been really demonized. For, if you actually look at the history, pretty, you know, no real good reason. But ketamine is the only legal psychedelic there is. And it's very dose dependent. So, well, in Virginia, like psilocybin is not legal here or anything like that. And, of course, they're doing a lot of promising studies, like with the VA and stuff, with MDMA. But those are all just research, right? Where was I going with that? I got myself off track. 

Lindsey: 
No, it's good. I think I was asking how people find you.

 Kellyn:
Yeah. 

Lindsey: 
Do you work really hard to educate your referral parties? What does that look like? 

Kellyn:
What has been happening, actually, is that, number one, we have an awesome SEO expert. And worth every penny. I'm just saying. We have had a really awesome referrals from patients who, you know, like LCSWs, who watch their patients as they go through the series. And they come back and they're like, what happened and what did you do? And then they send us more patients. And that's been one of the number one ways. And we're finally going on one year now. And we're booked out a month. I mean, we're fully booked. And we have this beautiful work-life balance that I couldn't have asked for better. I get to work with my husband, which is really fun. And word of mouth is getting around. And so we're at that point where, you know, we're treating, you know, the friends of somebody. Or we have a lot of success with treating the wife. And then the husband wants to do treatment as well. There's no shortage of mental health diagnoses, chronic pain diagnoses, right? So, you know, we know about half of people, half of our population is struggling with it. And we're in a really, we're in a military community. So there's multiple Air Force, Army, Naval bases around here. And so there's a lot of veterans who are coming to us, you know, who are seeking treatment for PTSD. 

Lindsey: 
Absolutely.

Kellyn: 
Yeah. 

Lindsey: 
Absolutely. What kind of training or, I guess, ethical considerations should OTs be aware of when potentially considering adding this to their caseload? 

Kellyn: 
Well, as I always say, know your scope of practice, right? Obviously, we're talking about medication. We don't prescribe or make recommendations on medications. And so I was just really fortunate that, you know, I married someone who wanted to go into this work. That being said, I truly believe that OTs have a place at the table here. So the other thing is, is obviously like ensuring your competency. You know, I would not have been prepared if it wasn't for my pelvic health background and the kinds of patients that I got comfortable treating in that context. I would not have felt prepared for this because I do have people having big emotional responses. Like I need to understand exactly what's happening in their nervous system at any given moment. I need to see the second that they dissociate and use whatever tools I have to bring them back. Right. So ensuring competency. I took a psychedelic therapy and integration course. I actually had to advocate for myself to get into that course. I was the only occupational therapist, of course. And I had I learned some really valuable nuggets. But, you know, the coolest part about that whole thing was that I learned that we are more than capable to be in this area of practice. I was just like, I learned some. But honestly, this is a huge, confident boost because I'm ready for this. You know, I would say that it is. It's just like, oh, I already have the skills to do this. Thanks for confirming that for me. And I'd say the other thing is consent like that. When you're working with such a vulnerable population and pelvic health, mental health, you know, those are our most vulnerable people to me. They're trusting you with their they're really like taking a big leap of faith in them coming into your office, you know, and and it's really brave. And I say that our patients are the most courageous people I've ever met because they come in not knowing what to expect. And they show up time after time, even if they have a challenging experience. Even if, you know, you have no idea what the ketamine infusion is going to be like. And they show up. So it's our job to make sure that we are respecting their bodies, respecting their their. The consent that they give us not only verbally, but, you know, I just I'm a firm believer in knowing and being able to tell what their body is saying. Yeah, that's my biggest thing is I, I don't, I don't do anything that they're not expecting, you know, always that thing with let them know what you're going to do before you do it. If you're going to change places on their body touching, ask them each time. Because you, you just you just don't know everybody has a story. And everybody has experiences, and it's really an honor to be trusted to treat them. And so we need to uphold that, you know, 

Lindsey: 
absolutely. I have a quick logistic question, which is this idea. I think you said like seven, seven sessions over three weeks, if I'm not mistaken. Is that like a industry best practice? Is that something that you guys at Illuminate came up with? Like, what, what's the story there? And do you find that people need to do a second round? 

Kellyn: 
That's a really good question. So, the research based protocol is six infusions over three weeks. However, that is based on being compared to ECT. So it's not like it was, it was, it's, it has robust research on its own, trying different protocols, trying different frequencies. So there is a lot of room for clinical judgment and a lot of room for discovering like the best protocol. We started out with the six over three weeks or over two weeks, I'm sorry, six over two weeks and very quickly saw that there could be a lot of improvement to that. Because if you think about you're going deep, like you are, it's bootcamp and three over two weeks, it's just like, you don't even have time to catch your breath really. Um, so we do seven and that is three in the first week. We did that specifically because how I mentioned, there's a chance for people to feel worse as their body and brain reconnect. When that happens, we don't like to leave people for too long. So we do three in that first week for that reason specifically, we call it the second infusion slump. That's just what we named it because people are the most likely to quit and the most likely to get really hopeless and feel like they're never getting it better. Even though I can recognize that they're right on track. Um, and then we do two over the following two weeks to really stretch out that 72 hour window of neuroplasticity to get max neuroplasticity over the most amount of time. So you're really getting over three weeks of neuroplastic changes where you can rewire your brain. I mean, it's, it's amazing. Um, and so we found that people don't typically need less. Usually they, if anything, I would recommend more. Um, obviously it's a big financial and time commitment. So, you know, I make my recommendations based on what I'm seeing around session five. Um, you know, you can usually tell people go from, you know, being suicidal or, or, um, really dissociated to, Oh yeah, I'm doing, you know, yoga three times a week. And I practice my breath before I go to bed every night and I don't need a Benzo. It's like, wow, that's amazing. Um, so you usually see that shift around three or four. And if by five, I don't really see it. Um, then, then I'm talking to them about adding a couple of more sessions. But we don't go over, we, we haven't really gone over 10 and we have had people do repeat series. But the cool thing about that is, um, the only two scenarios that that has happened. And it's because, uh, one of, one of the patients that did a repeat series, he is a combat veteran who, you know, had tons of chronic pain. Cause he had like all of the injuries you could possibly imagine on a person, um, and PTSD and just in pain all the time. He got off all his medications, you know, under the guidance of his, you know, psychiatrist, he got off all his medications and was like, you know, having like feeling again, but he was like, I don't feel better. I don't feel worse. I want to do this another series just to see where I can get. And so what an awesome scenario he's like, you know, I don't necessarily feel great being off all my meds, but I'm taking five less medications and I don't feel worse. So that's a win. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the cool thing about being out of the system is that we really get to do what the patients need. Yeah. So, um, you know, if patients need more, they can do more. Uh, we, we don't struggle with people being drug seeking or anything like that. It's our patients will be like, this is not fun. This is a lot of work. So, um, we get to do what they need. We add more if they need more, um, that would be at the frequency that we decide on together. It's very collaborative. And, um, sometimes people need boosters. That's a pretty common practice. Um, but actually the amount of patient of our patients that need boosters is far less than the like national average. And I believe that's because of the occupational therapy because they have coping skills. Yes. I have coping skills to, um, manage like what comes up and they understand how their nervous system works and they're able to catch themselves when they're at a three or four versus like an eight or nine. Right. That's, that's, that's the whole thing right there is they get the manual to their own body. Right. They understand how to use it. 

Lindsey: 
How does the cadence work in terms of giving them the education and the nervous system tools, talking to them about neuroplasticity and, you know, refinding occupations that were meaningful to them? How do you pair the behavioral changes with the session in terms of experiencing the ketamine? Like when, when does that portion of it happen? 

Kellyn: 
Right. So it all happens in the preparation session with me right before the hour preceding their ketamine infusion. Um, that's when we're going over all that stuff and it's, it's unique to each patient, you know, if somebody is, um, had a patient call it bedrot, if somebody is bedrotting, then getting up and, you know, washing your face and taking a shower and, you know, is a big deal, right? Um, eating that day, that's a big deal. We, and we progress accordingly. Um, however, you know, if somebody's already working full time and is, you know, we, we just, we really just individualize it to each patient. Um, that's the best part of being an occupational therapist is I'm not just looking at, you know, I'm always assessing every session. I ask them, how's your appetite? How's your sleep? How's your exercise? Because people who don't sleep well, who don't move their bodies, who don't eat and adapt at that, like eat nutritious food, they're never going to feel good. Um, and so I'm always asking that, but I'm also like, what did you do today? What are you, what's your plan after your infusion? And I just make many goals for the patients. Like, uh, yesterday was, I told, I had a patient, I was like, I want you to do five minutes of something. I don't care what it is, something that's for you and only you. So is that you could go for a walk, you could do yoga. These are just my ideas. I'd love you to come up with your own. Um, and just challenging each patient to  something that is meaningful to them. Cause that's what OT is all about. So, you know, one patient, it might be, I should go fishing. Um, another patient, it could be, I want you to, uh, go hang out with that person that you've been avoiding and you've been isolating. Right. And then the education is continual because obviously our patients are not experts at the nervous system. They're not experts at, you know, the, they're not occupational therapists. So they need that constant reassurance. You know, like I've heard you say many times, like we're their cheerleaders. So we, we, that's my dog. Um, they need to be reassured that they're on the right track. And so it's my job to monitor progress and to remind them where they started and how far they've come. And I pull out all of my little education tools when I see that they need a reminder that they're, you know, doing exactly what they were wired to do and they're responding exactly how they are supposed to respond biologically. And, um, yeah, so it's, it's ongoing. There's no real cadence.

It's just, it's ongoing. 

Lindsey: 
So do you have that hour of education before every ketamine infusion? 

Kellyn: 
Yes. 

Lindsey: 
So an hour and 45, it sounds like.

 Kellyn: 
No, no, no. So it's the education and the like manual therapy, the myofascial release, the body work, all of that is one hour before. And it just looks different. It depends on what that person needs that session. And you don't really know because they shift so much. Yeah. You don't really know what they're going to need that session, um, until they come in and you kind of, I spend about 15 minutes like assessing, you know, how they're doing. 

Lindsey: 
Um, okay. So where were we? Um, I think you were just wrapping up the, I think it was just the, the education that you, Oh, the, the somatic that you're doing. You're doing individual skills, individual work, assessing kind of where they're at per client basis.

Kellyn:  
Yeah. So, so the, all of the, the, I just call it occupational therapy because that's what it is. You know, we, we just, um, we're monitoring our patients and the way that the, the pace at which patients progress. I mean, through the series of seven, you don't know who's going to walk in the door. And so it's like meeting a new person every time. And at that point, you know, if they're having a bad day, I remind them, we pull out, you know, we do education on this is expected and normal. Nothing's wrong with you, your body, your brain, they're functioning exactly how they were designed. And then, so we usually spend a little bit of time doing that. We do spend a little bit of time integrating and, you know, drawing any themes or meaning from their last ketamine session before getting on the table. And we, we started with the foundation. Everyone starts with the foundation of the 3d breath. And we do a body scan to, to, at the end of the day, I want patients to understand if they can have a regulated 3d breath and a relaxed body, they can pretty much cope and handle with anything that comes up, right? It's, it's not necessarily the things that happen to us when we're talking about like, you know, toxic stress and just chronic stress. It's the way that our body responds to that. And, you know, the first thing that happens when you experience stress is your rest shifts and your body will tense up. So if we unlearn that and instead move into non-resistance and a beautiful 3d breath, then next thing you know, our window of tolerance gets humongous. And we have like these coping skills that we can take with us anywhere, anytime, and be able to deal with whatever comes at us because tell people, I'm like, life's going to keep on lifin', let me tell you.So we need to be able to handle it. 

Lindsey: 
That is amazing, Kellen. I, I can't thank you enough for just such an incredibly refreshing conversation. I have learned so much, and I just want to take a moment to congratulate you and your husband for just thinking outside of the box, being open to something that has not been done before. You know, as many people know, I work with my husband as well. And so I know what a special gift that is, especially when it's synergistic, the way that your relationship seems to be. So thank you for pioneering the way in this space and for taking the time and sharing it with us. It's incredibly beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today.

 Kellyn:  
Thank you so much. This, this is just a dream come true for me. And, and I really hope that, you know, our OTP colleagues can, can learn a little bit about it. And, you know, I'd really like to see more OTs come into this area of practice. So thank you so much for having me. It's been a huge blessing.

Lindsey: 
If anyone wants to learn more, and we can cut this part out, Kellen, if, if you don't want me to ask this, but do you want to direct anyone to any resources? Would you have a social media handle? Like what, what could be next steps, whether that's connecting with you or sending them to, to other sources? What would you want OTs to know if they were interested in pursuing this work? 

Kellyn:  
Great question. So I'm in the process in my early stages of creating a course of some kind to, you know, get OTs to be able to learn a little bit about this. I mean, as far as I know, I'm the only OT doing it right now, but there, I've never felt more authentic in my career. I'm, I'm using all of the skills that OTs have and I'm bringing them to the table and I'm getting to see miracles literally every day. So I'm going to be working on course until then, you know, feel free to give my email out. I would absolutely love to, you know, answer any questions, anybody who's interested in this area of practice. I'm just really passionate about it. And I just, I think we should be the provider of choice for ketamine assisted therapy. I really do. So yeah. 

Lindsey: 
Perfect. Thank you so much.

 Kellyn:  
Spread the word. 

Lindsey: 
Absolutely. Without a doubt. Helen, thank you so much again for, for this time together. 

Kellyn:  
Thank you. 

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