Newly revealed writings by Maya Kowalski’s mother indicate she suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and put her daughter’s life in danger, lawyers said this week.
In a draft of a 2015 blog post, Beata Kowalski written in her daughter’s voice, she wrote that her ketamine-induced coma could lead to “total body failure/death.”
Elsewhere, still writing from Maya’s point of view, she wrote that “if I were a horse, I would already be in a coma or dead.”
“My mother checked on me all day and even checked on me at night to make sure I was okay,” the mother wrote of herself in the draft email.
Maya Kowalski, then 10, was admitted to Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg for treatment of severe pain the following year.
Beata Kowalski told doctors that her child suffered from a rare condition called complex regional pain syndrome and that powerful ketamine treatments she received in Mexico — including induced comas — had eased her suffering.
Wary of her demands and skeptical of Maya’s condition, doctors believed Beata was suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which caregivers fabricate a child’s illnesses to get their attention.
They eventually contacted child welfare authorities in Florida, made Maya a ward of the state and barred her mother from seeing her.
After three months of separation and facing accusations of child abuse, Beata Kowalski hanged herself in the garage of the family home in January 2017.
Claiming the hospital acted recklessly in isolating Maya and downplaying her illness, her family is now suing the facility for $220 million.
Her father, Jack Kowalski, alleges false imprisonment, medical malpractice and emotional distress.
Maya Kowalski, who testified at the current trial that she still suffered from her condition, said doctors at the hospital ignored her complaints about pain.
The case ultimately became the subject of the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya, released earlier this year.
In other lengthy emails that Beata wrote in her daughter’s voice, she described the rarity of her condition and the debilitating side effects of ketamine treatments, including a distended stomach, waking up every 30 minutes at night, high temperatures and discomfort from a feeding tube.
“Thank God my mom was there and she helped me right away,” Beata wrote.
Despite these discomforts, Beata wrote that ketamine was the only path to a normal life and that Maya was equipped to tolerate the side effects.
“Ketamine gives me magical powers and I acted like a supergirl,” Beata wrote in her daughter’s voice.
At trial, Kowalski testified that the separation from his mother had been deeply traumatic, especially at his young age.
She insisted her condition was and is real – and that battling doubts only made her condition worse.
A doctor who had previously prescribed ketamine treatments to Maya had previously testified that this approach was medically sound and relieved her pain.
But testifying for the defense this week, Dr. Elliott Krane, professor emeritus of anesthesiology and chief of pain management at the Stanford School of Medicine, told jurors the diet was dangerous and not practiced in the United States. UNITED STATES.
The trial is ongoing.
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