Life with narcolepsy seems to get weirder and weirder at times. My wife and daughter are gone for the weekend. Often, having our house to myself has meant that I watch movies and lay around the house, especially when I have been pushing myself. Even though I have been driving myself at work, today was [...]
Many of my colleagues at school subscribe to the following axiom, “Never make major life decisions in February.” The logic is fairly simple. As an educator (particularly in Minnesota), no month of the school year is more difficult than February. Cabin fever is settling in completely – both for adults and students – as your [...]
The keynote today is Dr. Juliette Faraco, who is an associate of Dr. Mignot. Dr. Mignot had a last minute conflict, thus Dr. Faraco is presenting his research to us. She begins with a basic primer on DNA and the characteristics of the cell. She also provides a brief explanation of SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms [...]
After doing a decent job of live blogging at Dr. Naiman’s session, I failed miserably at doing it at any other session. While I hope to do it again tomorrow, I have no regrets about my inability to live blog a second session today. Instead, I had marvelous conversations with a number of individuals. I [...]
Invariably, I was tired enough last night that I managed to “miss” my second dose at 2 AM. I did take it at 3 AM , but between that and my overexertion yesterday, I did not drag myself out of bed until 9:05 AM – after the first session started. Apparently, Dr. Rye of Emory [...]
The last day or so have gone decently for me. While I do still feel adrift, I am having spurts of success when it comes to knocking one or two things off my ever-growing list. Beyond the finances, I filed somethings in our office, and I managed to get some tasks done for MOONS-MN. Most [...]
I awoke today feeling like I had been run over by a car. There seems to be no definitive reason for this. I have not slept on any bathroom floors. I took both doses of Xyrem. I laid off exercising excessively for the last two days because I was feeling run down. Why in the [...]
The thought hit me today that I expend tremendous energy battling my narcolepsy each day. Motivating myself to get up, pushing myself to exercise, forcing myself to bear down on a specific task, and stretching myself to be attentive to others (particularly my wife and daughter) are all doubly draining elements of my day. I [...]
One of the best (and weirdest) drugs for most people with narcolepsy is Xyrem (zi-rem). We take the drug at night to allow us a much more restful sleep. It seems odd that a person with narcolepsy would need a drug to sleep well, but the reality is that we are chronically sleepy because we [...]
Happy Fourth of July! Today was a good day in a number of ways. Even though I have oodles of things to do, I found a way to let go of those concerns and allowed myself to enjoy the day. Even better, I was productive this morning and completed the evaluations for the students in [...]