virtuallylucid

After two months of being caffeine free, I have been basically forced to become a caffeine consumer yet again. As it turns out, my narcolepsy has a greater impact on me than I had originally surmised. I've been falling asleep more frequently, have been groggy, unable to concentrate, missing school, etc. I fell asleep at work twice, once while standing. And the worst one is that I fell asleep on the -way- to work twice, while driving on the freeway, and I had no aura. For those of you who don't know what an "aura" is, I'm not talking metaphysics. Much like an epileptic can often sense an oncoming seizure, I can normally sense my narcoleptic sleep attacks. I usually have about 2 minutes of warning before sleep invades. Not this last time. I was driving and then I was waking up behind the wheel. They I don't know how long I was out, but the total trip from home to work on this day was 50 minutes. The second time I woke up, the other cars had given me about 3 car lengths of space in all possible directions. This tells me that I'd been driving erratically for a long enough time that I was deemed hazardous by other drivers. And they were right. So, after relating that story to Amy, we have decided that drinking caffeine is better than the two alternatives: 1) Being treated medically, which would involve Ritalin (sp?) and the suspension of my liscence for at least 6 months or 2) Continuing to have progressively more invasive sleep attacks and maladaptive symptoms. I can't lose my ability to drive, and as caffeine has reliably worked as a stimulant of sufficient regularity to control my narcolepsy, I'm drinking diet soda and coffee again.

I can't say that it makes me happy.