How it all began-College and getting a real job

I lumped my community college years in with high school, because it seemed like an extension of high school. After 3 years I finally got my AA Degree and moved about two hours from my parents home to go to UF. My major was Recreation with an emphasis in Therapeutic Recreation. The joke was that it was one of the easiest degrees, the way people knew this was that a lot of the football players were in my major. I did have to take a few difficult classes like Anatomy, Physiology, and Med Terminology. The classes that were out of my major were always larger and seemed to be the ones that were early, hence I didn't make it to the lecture classes much. But it didn't really matter, you could buy the professors power point presentations at the copy store, so it worked out well for me. I learned mainly be reading the text books. I had a letter from the school disability office I could give my professors to explain that I may, "appear to nod off at times." I guess they were trying to protect my personal info because the letter didn't actually say I had narcolepsy, but I usually told the professors. I remember one girl I met in college, Judy, used to offer to let me copy her notes, this was such a big help and she never made me feel bad about it or like I was lazy or cheating. I used to type all of my notes and would type outlines of chapters I read. This seemed to help me remember things, because I would often have to read and reread the same chapter over and over and often the info gets all mixed up when this happens, it is as if when you are in a drowsy stage you may actually read it but your mind isn't alert enough to store it properly into long term memory.

The Department of Recreation at UF is not huge, at the time there were probably around 10 professors. I probably had about 6 of them over and over, so they knew me well. I did great in all of these classes. I remember I could always stay awake in one specific professors class. My friends joked that I was her teacher's pet and that it was like she was lecturing just to me. I finally realized she was doing this because engaging me, even if it was just with her eye contact, seemed to help me stay awake. My two years at UF were good ones, usually my first class was at 10 or 11am and I lived across the street from campus and my favorite bar was two blocks away, so I hardly had to drive anywhere. The drive back home to visit my parents and friends sucked, two hours was way longer than I should ever drive at a time, but it has only been recently that I have admitted this to anyone (if you are a parent of a young adult with narcolepsy don't believe them when they say they don't fall asleep driving, I am lucky to be alive).
My last semester consisted of a 40 hours per week internship, which a I did in a children's hospital. It was a wonderful experience, but was a bitter taste of what having a "real job" and narcolepsy was going to be like. I did not tell my internship location that I had narcolepsy at first, but eventually it came out after I had to explain a cataplexy attack I had in an elevator one day, during which I came close to spilling a soda all over the doctor standing in front of me. The worst part of them knowing was that I was told I could not pick any children up, well if you have been around any sick children you can see that this would cause some awkward situations. I became very bitter over this, and some other bureaucratic issues that I had yet to experience, until then.
Another bone of contention during this time period relates to my family visiting. I know it will make my sister sad when she reads this, but she probably hurt my feelings more on one visit than throughout our entire childhoods. As I said earlier I started smoking cigarettes at around 18 yrs old. I hid this from my parents for years and years. So when they would come to visit sometimes I would have to go almost all day without having a cigarette (I hadn't discovered the nicotine patch yet). As you can imagine the nicotine helped me be a bit more alert. I found without it I would tend to not only be sleepier but I would have more frequent cataplexy attacks. My parents had seen these while I was living at home, but not that often. They always joked when my friends would tell stories about me doing the "falling thing" that I must not think anything at home was very funny because I didn't do it much at home. But with no nicotine for hours at a time, I tended to do the falling thing a lot when they would come to visit. Once we were in the pool of the hotel they were staying at and I did the falling thing and probably would have drowned if my dad wouldn't have held my head above water. Anyway, my sister would insinuate that I was faking it for attention because I seemed to do it more when my parents were around. Well that was because I couldn't smoke around them, but I couldn't come out and say this in front of them. I got the impression she didn't believe I had narcolepsy. Unfortunately this was not the last time I would feel someone doubted the validity of my having narcolepsy.
I slept through most of my graduation ceremony, my friends had to wake me up when it was time to walk. Having no money and no job, I moved back in with my parents and started the search for my first "real job". I got a job not directly related to my degree, but who does, working in a reading clinic. I loved that job and stayed there for about 4.5 years until they moved locations and I couldn't manage the drive any longer. It was a small company and for a long time I didn't tell everyone about my narcolepsy. It quickly became the office joke, but it wasn't too bad because we were all really close, and at least then I had an excuse for often being late. But I was a workaholic and would stay late and take work home, so no one seemed to mind too much if I came in late. Although I started there working directly with kids all day I eventually moved to a job more in the office versus in the clinic. The teaching was one-on-one so it was generally hard to doze except at the end of each session when the kids would read aloud for about 10 minutes, sometimes this was a struggle. I am a master at reading upside down though. I got married during this period, which I will get into in another post.
My next job was primarily an office job and very close to my house. It was basically a 9-5 job, and thinking back I don't know how I made it on time, but I seemed to. I stayed there for about 6 months and then my husband and I decided to move back to my college town. I got a job as a social worker working with individuals with developmental disabilities. This job allowed me to basically make my own schedule but my cases were spread out and sometimes I had to drive an hour to make a contact with a client. This sucked, but I managed. Eventually I became a supervisor and am now director of our office which has about 15 employees. We are a pretty laid back office and I don't have to be there early, but again I am a workaholic so I am often there very late, and usually go in on the weekends, so I don't feel bad for coming in at 10 or 11am. My job is way too much work for way too little pay, but when I think about getting another job I don't know how I could ever get one that allowed me so much flexibility in my schedule. I don't think I could be anywhere at 7 or 8 am for more than a day or two in a row. So I am kind of stuck where I am. I have only told a few people in my office that I have narcolepsy, and I have asked them not to repeat it, although sometimes I think the word has gotten around. Sometimes I want to because I feel that people may be bitter about me not coming in early, but I have found it just becomes the office joke, so at least if everyone does know but they don't know I know they know I don't have to hear the jokes, they can make them on the sly.
I have a trick for staying awake in meetings and trainings, I put a rubber bank around my wrist and snap myself when I start to dose. Be careful though, before too long you will have a welt. Bringing my laptop helps if it is a large group and no one minds. Even though I do things unrelated to the training, like check my email, at least I am awake to hear the lecture. I think a laptop would have been very helpful in college.
Well I have bored you enough for now, I'll try to make my next post more interesting!
A Sleepy Girl