Amanda Vasas has a special reason for wanting to elevate awareness about narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder she was diagnosed with at the age of 16. She doesn’t want anyone else to feel as alone as she did.
The former honors student was forced to withdraw from school because narcolepsy made it impossible for her to keep up with her classes; and perhaps worst of all, it isolated Amanda from her friends. At night, she’d lay awake in bed and cry silently. It seemed like her life had come crashing down. Her mother was very protective of her, and to this day, Amanda calls her a “hero.”
Amanda had a spectacular fall in which she hit her head on a concrete floor. Her mother, already worried about Amanda’s propensity to suddenly fall asleep up to five times a day, finally put two and two together and had Amanda’s doctor order a sleep study. Midway though the study, however, the technician stopped and told her they had collected enough data and there was no need to perform additional tests. Shortly after, she was officially diagnosed with narcolepsy. At last, there was a name for what was wrong with her.
Since her diagnosis, Amanda has completed a four-year college degree, she and her partner have a nice apartment, and she has job she loves. Discovering there were many other people in the world with narcolepsy was very comforting, but Amanda still has bouts of loneliness. She truly believes that unless a person has experienced narcolepsy first-hand, they will never really know what she goes through every day. Fortunately, there are many different support groups for people with narcolepsy available. For a list of resources, click here.
The Narcolepsy Network has a Message Board where people with narcolepsy, as well as their friends and family, post their experiences with narcolepsy and share tips on how to manage the disease.
To read Amanda’s amazing story (she’s a pretty great writer, too!), click here.
