Today being my birthday, or as it will one day be known-
SAMPIROMAS
I treated myself to a birthday neurologist. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but… I might have a conditon, and one with a cool name at that!
I’ve been having some physical/psychic problems lately. I’m always sleepy, recurrent bouts of deep depression even when not around my mother, fatigue, inability to concentrate, etc… I’ve had them all before but this seemed to be some sort of First Act Chorus Number Finish as they were attacking together. I thought perhaps it was sleep apnea, for I do have some (though not all) of the symptoms.
Doubling the dosage of my Pills of Joy™ helped with the depression, but not the other symptoms. So, after the necessary number of referrals and HR directors tossing chicken bones on the ground and all I got to see a neurologist today who specializes in sleep disorders (and is in fact extremely respected in the field- he’s written textbooks and has PubMed listings out the kaz-z-z-z-z-z-z-oo) and his very nice lesbianoid nurse practitioner.
She listened to me recount my symptoms with a “uh-huh… uh-huh” tone of professional interested disinterest, until I passingly mentioned that I currently have three alarm clocks in my bedroom as well as sometimes my cell phone (which has an alarm) and that I am capable of sleeping while all of them are going off. (I know what you’re thinking but don’t worry: no animals were injured in the making of the alarm clocks, except for the penguin skin and scrimshaw one.) She told the doctor about this and he seemed very interested also and asked me questions about lots of other stuff.
He said that just an examination of my throat, tongue, tonsils, considerable overbite (you could pretty easily hide a premature baby between my front and back teeth, and it’s gotten worse in the past couple of years due to some missing teeth). He says he thinks I very possibly do have sleep apnea, BUT… he thinks it’s more than that. While I have many of the symptoms of sleep apnea I don’t have all, but what I had almost all of the symptoms of was (this is weird and you’ll say the same thing I said) is…
keep rolling
the suspense is cool isn’t it?
almost there
you’re gonna love it
Narcolepsy.
So you’re thinking, isn’t narcolepsy when you’re talking to somebody or walking down a street or driving a car and suddenly your head hits your chest and you fall asleep (in some order)? [Cartman]Well… dat’s what I said…[/Cartman]
But it’s more than that. The cases like River Phoenix’s character has in MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO or the Argentinian had in MOULIN ROUGE are particularly rare, though the easiest to diagnose since it’s kind of hard to not notice somebody falling asleep at a urinal or while having sex. There are other forms that are less severe. Basically (my knowledge of anatomy and physiology ends with Anson Williams’ circulatory system song) there’s a “clock protein” in the brain that never really wakes you up. I have had trouble waking up my entire adult life- even as a high schooler I had to be shaken several times to get out of bed and then didn’t come awake until second or third period. This was under Reagan, incidentally, whose first wife was on Falcon Crest along with Lorenzo Lamas who speaking of birthday calls is so broke he’ll call you at home for $19.95 but that’s not really relevant, though it is sort of pathetic.
My mother has told me about my maternal grandmother, who had cataplexy and other narcoleptic symptoms. She’d fall asleep cooking dinner or on a phone conversation, mini blackouts that were attributed at the time to her diabetes, but sounds more like narcolepsy. The condition is hereditary. So not only do possibly I have a condition with a cool name, it’s something I can blame on my mother! Yeaaaaaa! If all works out this could be the best birthday ever.
Nothing has been diagnosed yet obviously and won’t be until I have a sleep study the week before Christmas. However, if all goes well and it is narcolepsy it would explain A LOT about my life (namely why I’ve never been able to wake up in the morning and almost always feel tired, why I always felt that River Phoenix was really an avatar of myself, why I go around saying “I’d love to but I’m narcoleptic” all the time, etc.). It’s incurable but it is treatable with medication and therapy which I think is wonderful- I REALLY DO HAVE SOMETHING- MAYBE!
And some of the medication used for narcolepsy is also used for ADD, which anybody would agree I have even if they’ve never heard of the condition.
So if it is narcolepsy and it is treated, then by this time six months from now, I might be able to run and skip and play like the other children. And by this time next year, I could be the beautiful proud black Gospel diva I’ve always known I would be if the narcolepsy and atheism and societal oppression weren’t holding me back.
So- all disclaimers in place about “not asking for medical advice” yadda yadda, but has anybody here had any experience with the non-passing out form of narcolepsy that I didn’t know until today existed? Or with sleep disorders in general that were treated and made a positive influence?
Meanwhile, wish me luck that I get narcolepsy for my birthday. Must run as I’m getting sleepy.
