Revisiting Kowalski Part Three: The Breaking Point

Nobody Should Believe Me

True Story Media

Society & Culture, True Crime, Personal Journals

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the third part of our Kowalski recap, Andrea walks through the events that led to Maya’s hospitalization and what hospital staff observed in those first days. As doctors quickly became concerned about both Maya’s condition and the unusual treatments she had been receiving, the hospital brought in a child abuse pediatrician and an investigation into possible medical child abuse began. *** Try out Andrea’s Podcaster Coaching App: https://studio.com/apps/andrea/podcaster Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy. Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	True Story Media
0:05.5	By the time Maya Kowalski arrived in the ER at Johns Hopkins All Children's in Sarasota, Florida
0:13.9	on October 7, 2016, she was in bad shape.
0:18.0	She was malnourished and hadn't had anything to eat or drink in five days.
0:22.3	And in the 10 months that pain specialist, Dr. Ashraf Hannah, had been seeing her,
0:26.7	the 10-year-old hadn't gained a single pound.
0:30.2	Maya was receiving quantities of ketamine that were 15 to 100 times the recommended dosage,
0:36.0	a total of 55 infusions over the preceding 10 months.
0:39.8	She was also receiving opioids, benzodiazepines, and zoffran to deal with the nausea from
0:45.0	the ketamine.
0:46.0	The previous summer at the parents' request, her pediatrician, Dr. Wassenauer, had made a hospital
0:51.3	homebound referral saying that Maya could no longer attend school.
0:55.3	Dr. Hanna wrote a second referral in September.
0:58.3	When Maya saw Dr. Hanna in his office the day before he sent her to Johns Hopkins All Children's,
1:03.2	she rated her quality of life at a zero out of ten.
1:07.5	Here's how Jack Kowalski describes the lead-up to October 7th and take care of Maya.
1:11.9	She went back to school, to laughing and playing.
1:16.6	We're just blessed that we finally seen something working.
1:21.6	And for a year, it did.
1:30.9	Until the night of the hurricane.
1:33.7	Conditions were bad an hour ago.
1:39.0	They've gotten worse now as Hurricane Matthew makes its way up the east coast of Florida.
	...

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