This is Heidi's mom. I am sorry for such a long break that I took, and forced Heidi to take, from writing. Heidi has been urging me to continue for a long time. In fact, she got quite insistent about it and I had to explain to her that I just did not have the energy. As she mentioned, I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder called narcolepsy. The part of the brain that regulates when you are awake and when you are asleep starts to get mixed up and quits working properly. It tells your body to be awake and asleep at the wrong times. Narcolepsy also makes you sleep in REM too much causing a major lack of the restful and restorative deep sleep that keeps us healthy. Other symptoms include things that occur with severe sleep deprivation, the worst for me being memory problems and not knowing whether something occurred in real life or if I dreamed it. Cataplexy is a condition that accompanies many people with narcolepsy. It causes a sudden loss of muscle tone resulting in anything from a slack jaw to completely falling down like a rag doll while still conscious. There are many more signs and symptoms I can not list here. Narcolepsy is a fascinating and complicated disease. I never dreamed (no pun!) that my excessive sleepiness was caused by narcolepsy because I thought TV portrayals were accurate. I was quite stunned when the doctor diagnosed me!
I am now taking medication to improve my sleep at night and another to help keep me awake during the day. It has been a struggle, but I am finally getting some good sleep and feeling more human again.
So, now I am back as Heidi's typing minion. I hope you all enjoy reading what she and I write!
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