Other than that, things have been going well. My exhaustion got a little desparate towards the end of last term (I got a mad awesome flu in the second last week and it sort of stuck around until I was ready to relax), but once I was on holidays I got back on track. My boy is starting to cut down his caffeine intake after being told it may be contributing to his insomnia... poor lad. He loves coffee, but a little too much. I swear, sometimes it looks like he's drinking mud, it's that thick. Makes the house smell nice though.
One thing I have noticed this year is a growing interest in sleep and related topics, within the media - in particular the odd newspaper article and Women's Health magazine, which I have a subscription for. As yet I haven't seen all that much related specifically to narcolepsy, but there seems to be growing concern regarding people's sleeping hygiene and the effect sleep, or lack of it, has on the body. Perhaps because we are living in such a switched on culture, people (in particular teenagers) are forming habits such as trawling Facebook or playing games well into the night, and then going to bed without a routine to slow the body down, but still getting up at a normal time to go to school or work. This leads to less sleep than what is ideal, but possibly also interrupted sleep and a difficulty going to sleep due to the bright lights of the screens boring into their eyes until 2 minutes before they lie down. Thus, a lot of the articles refer to problems such as insomnia and sleep apnea, but not narcolepsy - people want to read about how to get more sleep, not necessarily on why they are sleeping too much.
I'm considering writing in to Women's Health about this... they're a good publication (they generally promote healthy, fit living as opposed to skinny, beautiful living) and I think that, while people may not necessarily want to read about how to fix their own oversleeping problems, it may help to raise awareness of narcolepsy. A lot of people just don't understand it. I guess it's similar to a mental illness (well, technically it is a mental illness) as there are no outward signs of 'ill health' - such as lesions, tumours or wounds - except for tiredness, and 'everyone gets tired'. For people like me, who have narcolepsy but still want to live relatively normally, it means making concessions for the tiredness and creating a lifestyle that is enjoyable but not overwhelming. I find that the hardest thing to explain.