Feline imaginary

The primary topic of conversation this week has been whether or not my hallucinations have moved up a level from small crawling critters to bigger walking critters.  To explain, I suspect I may have hallucinated a cat! 

As you do.

I was watching tv on Monday night and was suddenly aware that there was a cat on the sofa sitting next to me.  Not odd unless you bear in mind that the Mummy clan no longer have a cat after Little Prince became very allergic and suffered horribly around our puss.  Yes, we'd had the cat longer but I suspect Little Prince might have been a touch harder to rehome.

So, Monday, I may have closed my eyes for just a moment.  Barely a second really, in fact, not so much closed them as rested them.  Yes, I rested my eyes. That's what I did.  When I opened them there was a cat sitting next to me, looking at me. I looked at it then it got off the couch and took itself outside via the open back door and into the rain. 

So there are a few arguments for against the cat being real.  In the pro column, cats are reasonably common where we live.  The back door was open and it was raining.  So it's not against the realms of possibility that a cat took refuge from the rain. 

In the "Princess Mummy's a nut job" column, the sofa wasn't wet or warm where the cat had sat, the cat appeared to voluntarily leave into the rain, and Little Prince had no ill effects the next day when a guide dog in school left us in no doubt as to his allergy.;  

So we may never truly know.  Royal Dr O (Princess Mummy's narcolepsy doctor) is in the pro-hallucination column.  He's actually surprised that I haven't upgraded from crawly bugs before.

Prince Daddy wants to know if I'll now be catching small animals under crockery for him to dispose of -that disappear when he arrives to do his Daddy duty.

The answer - mayyybeee.  I'll keep you informed.

Narcoleptic Nightmares

I spoke too soon.  I know I did.  I even said I was speaking too soon in my last post.  But I did it and this week I have paid.  And paid.  And paid.

 

I have not had an easy week this week.  Every night I've woken up from the worst nightmares.  Cold sweats, the lot.  And trust me, a Narcoleptic Nightmare is scary.  We can't always tell real from fantasy - which isn't as much fun as you might think.  In fact, there should be an age limit, a really tall height bar and, hell, a maturity test before you're allowed to wander through my subconscious.  It's got to the point now where I'm actually a little afraid to sleep and when I actually do sleep, I act out my dreams and wake as tired as I went to bed.

 

As a result my days have been as bad as my nights.  I've been running slower and laggier than a 1980s PC.  Seriously, anything that needs doing? Ask Prince Daddy cos Princess Mummy is just not functioning. 

 

Another fun side effect of severe sleep deprivation is the increase in periods of automatic behaviour.  For non-narcoleptics, that means my brain is taking a 5-20 minute siesta without telling the rest of me.  So I carry on doing whatever I was doing before sleep.  Saturday, that something was eating grapes.  So I carried on eating grapes - until I'd eaten damn near the whole pound! I also missed a big chunk of what I was trying to watch on TV and was as sick as a dog.  (Eating a pound of grapes in a sitting will do that to you!)

 

Last night I had my first full night's sleep in over a week.  Woke up this morning feeling tip-top.  Took Little Prince to school - all of a 5 minute walk away and continued to prove my fineness by having a splat in Tesco.  So, one good night's sleep does NOT conquer all!

To update from last week's post, I met with the Anaesthetist at the hospital.  He was quite excited that I was his first Narcolepsy sufferer in 30 years of practice.  Vaguely disturbing.  He had, however, thoroughly researched Narcolepsy, Cataplexy, and their effects on Pregnancy and Labour.  He is quite happy for me to try for a normal birth which was good news as some people in my Narcolepsy group reported that their consultants etc had pushed for a caesarean section under the heading of "better safe than sorry." 

I don't know if I should be happy or scared that, as my obstetric team have no experience of Narcolepsy, they are happy for me to make all the decisions and call all the shots.  So much responsibility on my little - nonmedical - shoulders.  Still, I assume that if anything was to go wrong, or I were to suggest anything outrightly dangerous, they'd step in.  Right?  Right? Um.....

Sex? Yes Please!

Princess Mummy has had her 20 week scan and everything is going great guns.  The Nugget has been checked and has 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 matching arms, 2 matching legs, a beautifully functioning heart, spine etc.  Oh, and a Willy!!!

The Nugget is now officially to be known as the Littlest Prince. 

So much for this bump "feeling" female! (although I was hoping for a brother for Little Prince.)   We have dithered somewhat on names - the first name we chose we weren't completely sold on and, when the radiographer told us we were the seventh person with that baby name that week, we felt that the Littlest Prince couldn't possibly be one of the crowd.  So we went to our backup name.  Which was also the name of Queen Nanna's dog which passed away 2 years ago.  So; back to the drawing board. 

 

Out came the Modern Book of Baby Names - offering such gems as Ethelred, Cuthbert, and Mehitabel.  But seeing as we do love our Littlest Prince, we went with something more traditional and less likely to get him beaten up in the playground.  We asked Little Prince for his choice of names, but rejected Optimus, Ratchet, and Ultra Magnus for the same reason Mehitabel didn't make the cut.  Although Prince Daddy maintains that Optimus might well be the coolest kid in the playground.

At risk of speaking too soon, this pregnancy - narcolepsy aside - has gone like a dream.  The worst I felt was doing the drugs withdrawal thing which passed (eventually).  Since then, I have cruised through - although a lot of credit should go to Prince Daddy who has gone over and above the call of duty in terms of housework/supervision etc whilst Princess Mummy has reclined on the sofa indulging her cravings for salt. 

Which makes my non-existent weight gain a bit of a mystery.  As I now weigh LESS than I did at the start of the pregnancy, my consultant is insisting extra scans are the way forward.  Although it's a little hard to put all my faith in him at the moment.

When my midwife told me she wanted me to see the Medical Conditions Consultant because of the narcolepsy, I was a bit nervous.  More nervous when he told me he'd NEVER had a patient with narcolepsy and proceeded to google it in front of me.  Tomorrow I'm meeting the head consultant who, I hope, knows a little something about the condition, otherwise I'm taking myself and bump off to Narcolepsy Clinic and having the baby there!!!