Thursday, May 17, 2007

narcolepsy

One odd thing about Mom's affliction was that she never fell asleep while driving. She would
conk out in the passenger seat in a minute, but never while behind the wheel.
When we were little, we had this rocking chair that Mom would sit in to read to the four of us.
We would sit on the wooden arms and Bobby would probably be in her lap. She would be reading and nod off. One of us would nudge her and say "Wake up Mom." She would wake up and continue reading. Shirley, do you still have the chair?
Her sister, Julia, was even worse about falling asleep. Maybe that is the reason she never drove. There is a picture taken of them both sitting on a couch with heads together fast asleep.
I guess there is something good in everything - Mom never had any trouble going to sleep at night.
Sue

2 comments:

cdroses said...

First off I'm shocked...I never knew gradma was interested in nursing school.
Now that my jaw has been scraped off my desk.
"NAP ATTTACK!" is the first thing that pops into my head when I think of grandma's narcolepsy. The family trip that she and Deb joined us to California, started that phrase. By the time we got to Myrna's it was a running joke. Someone would say "NAP ATTACK!" and Deb, Tam and/or I would drop our heads pretending to sleep.
I do remember her reading stories and nodding off, too.

Shirley said...

No chair -- I had the seat recovered once and refinished the wood, but eventually it got too big for the living room and that seat was always lumpy. So I sold it. I sometimes think I would want it back, but I think it rocked too far back and made one feel like you would tip over backwards.