Just when a majority of Americans had almost recovered completely from the shock of watching the HBO documentary, A Boy’s Life, released in 2003, here comes Take Care of Maya. This documentary has all of the workings for a Hollywood horror, or even an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
(Enter the Kowalskis.” There is the mother, Beata, father, Jack, teenage son, Kyle, and the main subject of the documentary, little Maya, who is “said” to have a neurological disorder called CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome). In such conditions, the nerves fire incorrectly, causing moderate to severe pain, based on the intensity of such conditions.
If you think such a problem was to be handled morally and ethically, you are in for quite a shock. What makes the whole thing inconceivable to those who think normally is the fact that Beata Kowalski was a cardiac care nurse. Still, she felt that her daughter should have been given large amounts of Ketamine, the same drug that killed Matthew Perry.
In the documentary, video clips are shown of Maya, Beata, and Co at various doctors’ appointments, with Beata doing most of the talking. She claims that Maya was having out of all things, chest congestion and sinus infections, things that are not associated with CRPS at all. In one clip, Beata is pushing Maya to do therapeutic exercises because her legs were supposedly turning in. But we can clearly tell that Maya is exaggerating her symptoms when she says in a hyper dramatic tone, “I can’t take it, I can’t take it!”
One clip later, Maya is seen faking severe congestion and doing the faker’s cough as they are traveling to, as most people probably expect by this time, another doctor so they can try to get a bogus diagnosis. In lay terms, it is a classic case of doctor shopping because the parents just want money. What better way to get money than to exploit your own kid? Beata Kowalski makes Robert Oliver’s grandmother look like a saint.
When the Kowalskis don’t get the answer they so desperately crave, they take their daughter to yet another hospital somewhere in Florida until finally, Mama Bear Kowalski does research and discovers Ketamine treatment. Meanwhile, she records on video every single doctor’s visit in every hospital and clinic she takes Maya. Something screams “publicity stunt” here. The only thing Beata was after was a big attention high: “Aw, feel sorry for me! My kid is, ha ha, sick.” What a crude and pathetic farce!
(Enter Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick.) This doctor sees Maya, and to educate other children, he films her in his exam room. During the video footage, he discusses dystonia, which is the inward turning of Maya’s legs. It isn’t clear whether Maya is faking these symptoms with silent encouragement from her mother or if indeed, she has the telltale signs of CRPS. Remember, Mama Bear Kowalski was a nurse. It is easy for people with medical training to coach others on how to fake a condition so they can get bogus diagnoses and drugs as well as to exploit the system.
After examining Maya, Dr. Kirkpatrick decides that the best way to treat her is with a highly dangerous drug called Ketamine, a general anesthetic with analgesic and hallucinogenic properties. That is what makes it a great, but dangerous recreational drug. But here, we have a quack Florida doctor, who believes this treatment to be best for a little girl. So he prescribes it for Maya, and that is the beginning of the storm that rips the family apart.
Following Dr. Killer Kirkpatrick’s recommendations, Mama Bear Kowalski takes her daughter to a facility in Mexico, where she is given up to 50 times the typical dosage of Ketamine, and the little girl lapses into a coma. We are talking about a drug that, though not as dangerous as Fentanyl, is potentially deadly when used incorrectly. But you can’t tell that to a know-it-all Munchausen mommy because she will crap herself and flip her lid.
A note to the readers: There is a reason why this treatment was outlawed in the United States. It is unethical and extremely dangerous. But we are talking about a brain dead doctor from Florida, who believes this to be the ultimate go-to treatment for CRPS when in actuality, psychological counseling, physical therapy, and minor pain relievers work wonders. I have a relative who had the same condition, and she didn’t take Ketamine to get better. Today, she has no symptoms whatsoever.
Before boarding the plane bound for Monterey, Mexico, Maya is seen smiling at the airport. Oh, but I thought she was in horrible agony. For being in such a state of constant severe pain, she is either a good actress, or enjoying her pain. I am sure we can all agree that this was a well planned and orchestrated act put on by Mama and Papa Kowalski just for the money. Why the Hell else would they be filming this stuff unless they wanted to make a documentary that not only got them money, but in a sick way, exploited a vulnerable and obviously brainwashed little girl?
It is during the Monterey footage that we see an extremely sad thing. Before Maya’s Ketamine infusion begins, she is terrified she won’t wake up, and she sounds so small and pathetic. Just listening to her makes the hardest of hearts shatter like glass. A lot of people, who have seen this whole circus show are probably shaking their heads and saying, “no, this should not happen to anybody, let alone a poor and defenseless child who is under the mercy, or lack thereof, from her parents.”
Days pass, and when Maya wakes from her coma, she is absolutely hysterical with terror because she is obviously hallucinating from the effects of the Ketamine. Beata Kowalski, playing the good mama (and the victim,) talks to her daughter with fake calmness in a sick attempt to make normal people feel sorry for her. But by now, we know the drill. There is nothing wrong with Maya at all other than the fact that Mommy and Daddy want a big fat check and a bogus treatment for a condition the little girl doesn’t have at all.
After the Ketamine coma, Dr. Kirkpatrick recommended that Maya see another physician, Dr. Hannah, who recommended low doses of Ketamine (outside the hospital setting.) So from that day on, the little girl was given Ketamine on a nightly basis at home. On one video of Maya’s at-home physical therapy, Mama Bear Kowalski says, “I’m sure Maya’s gonna need two doses of Ketamine tonight after doing this.” That should raise red flags for everybody because no parent in his or her right state of mind would want to increase the dosage of a potentially deadly drug unless directed by a licensed physician. Not only that, but who would want to take such risk outside a properly equipped hospital? I’d be damned if I did that for any reason.
Almost 20 minutes into the documentary, things take a turn for the worse during Hurricane Katrina, a pivotal point at which the Kowalskis discover a window of opportunity to take advantage of their daughter’s prognosis. What a better way to do it than to say that Hurricane Katrina caused young Maya to “relapse?” Classic Munchausen mumbo jumbo, but that was what happened. According to Jack, Maya started having excruciating abdominal pain, which is, as we would soon find out, a side effect of the Ketamine she had been receiving; not just the oral, but the IV drug as well.
Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital was where the next chapter of this ugly story begins. After talking with his wife, Jack Kowalski drove Maya to the emergency room, and the medical staff smelled something fishy. After some time spent in triage, nurses asked Jack questions, and he got Mama Bear on the phone. Maya had been taking oral Ketamine all this time, but Mama demanded more and more. If you guessed the medical staff weren’t dumbfounded by this nonsense, you are dead wrong. In fact, they were furious, especially when Mama Bear showed up an hour later, acting totally unhinged and belligerent, demanding things were done her way. One nurse stated that despite the risk of respiratory and cardiac arrest, Beata kept demanding more Ketamine be given to her daughter. So Maya was admitted and isolated from her family.
(Enter Sally Smith.) An expert on child abuse, Sally Smith was assigned to Maya’s case in October of 2016. At this time, Maya was 10 years old. Dr. Smith entered the room and asked all kinds of questions regarding Maya’s condition, and that was when the final decision was made to isolate Maya from her family because there was no doubt at all that Beata Kowalski was a Munchausen mom and Jack Kowalski was as spineless as a jellyfish when it came to the welfare of his own child. After this move was made, Beata called the hospital and asked to speak with her daughter, a request which was denied by Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, and anybody can guess as to why that denial was made. Munchausen mothers are witty and clever when it comes to getting their own way, and it was probably feared that she would coach her daughter to act in certain ways or say things that would make her appear to be legitimately ill and make the hospital look bad or to convince them to give her the Ketamine Beata so desperately demanded.
Toward the end of the phone call, Beata demanded the right to speak with Maya, which in turn pissed Jack off. In a sick attempt to protect his wife, Jack blew up, telling her how the hospital would hold her words against her (and damn well they should have.) But Beata didn’t care.
On October 14, 2016, things reached a fever pitch when Beata, during the shelter hearing, showed her ass and threw herself onto the floor of the courtroom, possibly another stunt orchestrated to draw attention from the matter at hand and focus it all on her. But still, she was denied custody of Maya. Later, we learn that during one hospital visit, Maya was seen roughhousing with Kyle, something she wouldn’t have been able to do if she was in excruciating pain as her mother claimed.
To make a long story short, Beata ended up committing suicide, something nobody should ever do or have wished on them. Though we, the viewers, are shocked by this, I am sure that nothing excuses Beata’s actions. Abuse of a child is a serious offense, and it is something that Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital didn’t take lightly. But despite all of this and after a lengthy trial post-suicide, during which members of the court hounded the nurses about referring to Maya as “Ketamine Girl,” Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital was wrongfully sued.
We should have seen this one coming because Florida seems to lean in favor of the wrong doers. Such was the case in 2011, when Casey Anthony was allowed to walk free after she murdered her two-year-old daughter Caylee and discarded her like a bag of trash. So is the same here. The Kowalskis were put on a pedestal while Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital was vilified. In all, I have to say that this documentary was the crudest ever, but it gave us a good look at crazy amplified to its maximum level. Thank you, Netflix, for giving us a front row seat to stupidity beyond anything words can define.
Submitted by: Jason McKown
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