Thread:Suhonenm/@comment-29989042-20170409211517

(I didn't want to hijack the other thread. 😊)

Thank you again for your kind words and well wishes. I'm so sorry you are dealing with so much right now, especially the pain and PTSD, but I love your positive attitude that you will survive. That's a terrific outlook, and the right one to have. I will be praying for your strength, pain, and recovery. I see from your bio that you have had to leave your profession as a photographer. I'm so sorry for that too, especially if you loved it as much as I loved my job. I was a teacher for 20 years, mostly at the elementary level (grades 3-5), and taught at the middle school level my last year. My severe narcolepsy forced me to quit. It is an autoimmune, neurological disorder of the brain. Most people think it just makes us so sleepy to where we can't fight it and fall asleep, no matter where we are. It is a disorder that affects sleep and wakefulness, making our brains confused as to whether it should be awake or asleep. The ability to regulate sleepiness and wakefulness is lost. That means I suffer from insomnia too. There are other symptoms too, such as automatic behaviors, sleep paralysis, hallucinations upon falling asleep and waking up (I have both), and micro sleeps which can also cause hallucinations during the day. A major charecteristic is cataplexy, which I also have. It's the sudden loss of muscle tone. The cause isn't known, but one line of thinking is that my brain can go into R.E.M. sleep at any time, and if I'm standing, I drop to the ground. That doesn't happen often to me. The last full-body attack I was standing and fell on my face, breaking my nose. Usually cataplexy affects just my upper body. I drop things I'm holding, and I can't talk. Even though we don't know why it happens, but one line of thinking is that our brains can go into R.E.M. sleep at any time, even if we're up, awake, and talking. Part of R.E.M. sleep is the paralizing of muscles so we don't act out our dreams, which also occur in R.E.M. sleep. There is no cure, but medications, medicine to keep us awake during the day, and medicine to help us sleep at night. We never feel rested, even if we do sleep because, without meds, our brains miss the first stages of sleep, which are the restful, restorative, healing stages. We have memory problems too, since we're always sleepy and miss the memory stages of sleep. I've probobaly had it since high school, and it's difficult to diagnose, taking on average 15 years to do so. I was diagnosed in 2008, and it was manageable then. It's severe now and difficult to manage, as I can no longer take daytime meds due to reactions, the last one causing me heart problems. I can only take my night time med, which helps me sleep, gives me the first couple of stages of sleep I miss, and allows me to wake refreshed and have energy to make it almost to about noon before I start fighting symptoms the rest of the day. I spend afternoons sleeping and try to be up in time for my family to come home from work and school.

I didn't intend this to be so long, and I'm so sorry it is. I don't mind sharing my story because not much is known about it by people who don't have it. I sure didn't know much, and what I knew came from movies, where it's often made out to be funny. I found this game about the same time my symptoms were worsening, and as they became more serious, I got more serious about playing. I've been playing a little over 2 years now, and last Tuesday I hit level 500. I am fairly new to this wiki, joining last fall, although I did do a lot of research here for about 6 months prior to joining to learn more about the game. I sure hope they can fix everything. I haven't found anything like it, and I've played a lot of hidden object games before I found this one!

It's nice to "cyber-meet" you, and as I said before, I wish you the best and am praying for you. Hope you have a lovely rest of your weekend! -Monika🐾🐾 