Sleep Insanity

Kiel and I have been going at it for some time now. He maintains that he has trouble keeping his nights and days straight. I insist that if he would just go to bed at the same time every night, whether he is tired or not, and make himself get up in the morning, he will get on track in a fairly short time.

It wasn't working. I refuse to be kept awake by a night owl when I am a morning person! Especially when he starts missing classes due to what appears to me to be just plain stubbornness. I finally "got it" that if he really can't force himself into a reasonable schedule, then there must be something wrong with him.

We started with a trip to the primary care physician who could find nothing wrong with him. Everything checked out as normal. It took me awhile to go to the next step of making him get an appointment with a sleep clinic. I can't imagine that there is anything really off base, but we can at least rule it out if there is nothing there.

Imagine my surprise when they found that he has a mild form of both sleep apnea and narcolepsy. I can't imagine what a serious case would look like. Apparently he moves often in the night, and that prevents him from entering sound sleep. So he wakes up tired and can't function until he has slept in the daytime enough to make up for it.

So my solution would have been to give him medicine to make him sleep soundly. But instead of that, they are giving him medicine to make him stay awake in the day time. Go figure. So far I am not impressed with the results, especially considering that the medicine costs a hefty $854! Thank God for insurance, but it still dented my budget by $70. I am almost hoping this is not the solution because quite frankly we can't afford it.

Well, time will tell. So far it has only made Kiel have headaches and be a bit less grouchy in the morning. I'll keep you posted. What a bummer!