All of these years, my family and I have been under the impression that I was just lazy. Who knew?
I always thought of THE NARCOLEPSY as having a complete inability to control when you fall asleep, or collapsing into a deep slumber in the middle of very normal activities. Like poor Skeeter, here:
Clearly, this is not the case, as I don’t do that. (Though, I might try to use it as an excuse in future situations where I could be cut some slack. “It’s not my fault I didn’t make it to work on time! I suffer from THE NARCOLEPSY.” “Officer, I ran that stop sign because I suffer from THE NARCOLEPSY!” “I’m sorry, debt collector, but I can’t pay you this month. I suffer from THE NARCOLEPSY, you see.”)
I’ve always been what my East Texas family likes to call “really dadgum lazy.” If left to my own devices, I will sleep all night, and then sleep well into the next day. Sometimes, even well into the next night. I’ve done it before. I’ll admit it. Ain’t no shame in my sleep game. I like the Zzzs and the Zzzs like me.
But then, there are also the matters of my complete inability to rise at a reasonable hour (as in, any time before 1 p.m.), my tendency to need to steal quick naps at work just to be able to function through the afternoon, and my horrifying penchant for dozing at red lights. On PURPOSE. I can actually convince myself that it’s okay to shut my eyes for just…a…second…
Truth be known, it’s sort of a miracle that I’ve not caused any accidents. Clearly, I am a narcoleptic superhero with the ability to sleep in odd situations without repercussion!
I had never been for a sleep study before, but for some reason, my current doctor picked up on something that I’ve uttered to every doctor I’ve ever had, but that has gone widely unnoticed by said doctors: GOOD SLEEP. I NEEDZ IT. She scheduled me for a sleep study, just to see if there was a chance I had apnea. I already knew that I didn’t because I don’t snore. At all. (My fiance will confirm this, as I have threatened bodily harm to him if he doesn’t.) And, sure enough, once they hooked me to an unfathomable number of wires – the likes of which would likely be found embedded in the motherboard of a space shuttle – and told me to “sleep normally” (as if), I got as much shut-eye as the situation would allow, and the results put a big ixnay on the apnea theory, according to the neurologist who reviewed my file.
But then, she said, very casually, “I’m wondering, actually, if you have narcolepsy.” To which I answered, “No, I don’t. Are you sure those degrees are real?” She persisted, though, saying that I showed some of the classic symptoms of the sleep disorder and proceeded to utter a bunch of very medical terms that I didn’t understand. Then, she scribbled down some illegible notes on a paper, sent me to the front desk, and I was told that I was going to be going for another study – this time, an overnight study combined with a DAYTIME study.
I balked at the receptionist. “Like…they want me to sleep during the day?”
“Yes.”
“I would need to take off work so I could…sleep? All day?”
“Well, so you could nap, yes.”
Um, hell yes! Sign me up!
I went on my merry way, informed my boss that I would not be coming in the following Tuesday because I had been ordered to SLEEP ALL DAY, and packed my little overnight bag on Monday evening with about as much glee as I’ve mustered since Christmas Eve, circa 1985. I wasn’t even bothered by the wires they attached to me this time because not only was I going to get to sleep all night, I was going to SLEEP ALL DAY, too! It was the proverbial wet dream for my lazy ass.
The next morning, they woke me up at 9. I sat up and glared at the sleep study person (I really don’t know the technical term for such a job, so “sleep study person” is going to have to do). “But…I get to SLEEP ALL DAY,” I reminded him.
“Not quite. We’re going to have you take a series of naps.”
Well. This was not going to be the fun day of slumber that I had bargained for. Still, naps are good. I like naps. Let’s do naps. “When can I take my first nap?”
“In two hours.”
I flipped idly through the cable channels for the next 120 minutes, fighting sleep for all I was worth. I wanted to hug the man when he came back in and told me it was time for a nap.
“You have 20 minutes to fall asleep,” he explained, “and if you don’t fall asleep in that time frame, we’ll get you back up for another two hours, and then try again.”
“I’m all about some sleep. I can do this. Let’s get to it.”
“You’ll have 15 minutes to nap when you do go to sleep,” he continued. 15 minutes? 15 MINUTES?! What kind of a nap is that?! “We’ll wake you up then for another two hours.”
So, what this sinister man was telling me was that he was going to fluff my pillow, pat my head, wish me sweet dreams, and then, just as I’m falling asleep, go, “HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! JUST KIDDING!!! GET UP!!!” I didn’t like the sound of this at all. Still, I went to sleep quickly and tried to enjoy the limited time I had to run around my psyche and create some interesting dreams. Something about some elementary school classmates and a hot air balloon, I think.
I went through this process a total of four times before they released me. I was glad to leave. Because that meant I could go home and sleep.
At my next appointment with the neurologist, she said, “You’re narcoleptic. You have a severe case of it, as a matter of fact.” She pointed out that for a diagnosis of this particular sleep disorder, the patient needs to have two naps during a study where they fall asleep in five minutes or less, and one nap where they experience REM activity.
Apparently, my average time for falling asleep was 3.5 minutes, and I experienced REM activity each nap – sometimes multiple times. Which wasn’t a startling revelation to me. I love sleep, and I love dreams. I have some wild dreams, man. They make my sleep interesting, so I’ve never thought of them as a bad thing. Until the big bad neurologist swooped in and took her mean ‘ol neurology wrecking ball to my poor little dreams.
I was relieved to learn that THE NARCOLEPSY is a treatable condition. She prescribed me “psycho stimulants,” which sounded a bit like something Britney Spears might pop before donning a pink wig and foreign personality, strapping her kids to the luggage rack with Twizzler rope, and peeling out full speed ahead on the wrong side of the road in search of a frappuccino fix.
But, she’s a doctor and I’m not. So, I had the prescription filled.
I’m a fan of cheap generics, and cheap generics often time are pretty blunt about what you’re taking. In this case, I was handed a bottle that said “Dextroamphetamine Sulfate.”
Amphetamine?
Wait, speed?
SPEED?!
Yes, I’ve been prescribed a low dosage of speed to keep me from wanting to keel over and take a nap during my workday. SPEED, people. But do you know what the problem with speed is? You take it, and then you can’t sleep at night. Which seems very counterproductive to the whole desired end result of keeping you awake during the day. I popped this little sucker at 2 pm, and nearly 12 hours later, I was as wired as Lindsay Lohan after a party at Amy Winehouse’s flat.
I did recall the neurologist saying that should I find myself having difficulty sleeping, I would be prescribed something to aid in that, as well.
Awesome. So, they feed me uppers during the day, then downers at night. I’m pretty sure this is the vicious cycle of abuse that was preached firmly against in school. I’m supposed to “just say NO,” aren’t I? When someone offers me an upper, I’m supposed to yell, “DANGER STRANGER!” and run the other way, right? Why would they teach me these things if a doctor was going to come along and tell me that it WAS okay to scarf down the barbiturates? Perhaps this “neurologist” is a drug pusher in disguise, and her ultimate goal is to have me knocking at her door at 3 a.m., strung out and screaming, “CRACK IS WHACK, but I’ll take some anyway!!!”
At least I have my defense all worked out. “I’m sorry I was smoking a crack pipe on the hood of your car, Mr. Policeman. It’s cause I have THE NARCOLEPSY.”
