circadian
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Chris lay in bed, wide awake. He had no idea why. It was dark, his girlfriend was fast asleep, and he could hear crickets outside the window. Everything told him he should be sleeping. He rolled over to see the dim glow of his clock. 1:34 am. Just another reminder that he should be asleep. But for some reason, he could not do it. He closed his eyes, tried counting sheep, and just lay there.
It had been happening to him a lot recently. His body’s daily rhythms were all out of sync with the rest of the world, and they never held to any pattern. One day he could be functioning normally, and the next his body swore it was midnight at eight in the morning. Right now, his body was convinced it was the middle of the day, even though everything else said otherwise.
He slowly crawled out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping woman next to him. She was as frustrated with his body’s uncooperative nature as he was, so the less he could disturb her the better. He crept through their apartment, doing his best not to make any noise in the pitch-black space. All the while, he thought about why this could be happening.
It had been a recent development, he knew that. It had only started a week ago. What had changed at that time? The only thing he could think of was that he had gotten sick and been put on a new medication. The doctor had told him there could be a few unexpected side effects, but Chris had assumed they would be things like headache or stomach pain. Not a complete rewiring of his body’s sense of time.
He retrieved his phone and used it as a flashlight, making his way to the kitchen, where the suspect pills were stored. The pills themselves looked fairly normal, just small, circular pills. He shined the light on the bottle, but it had nothing about side effects. He had thrown that list away soon after getting the medication, as he did with all others.
The next place to look was the internet. A quick search showed him the list of side effects. A complete disruption of a person’s sleep cycle was not listed among them. So, it was probably not the pills, unless the manufacturers were hiding a few side effects. He supposed that could be possible, but how would the clinical trials not see it? He set the bottle back in its place and headed back to bed.
He would make sure to call the doctor about his problem in the morning. If it was due to an unknown side effect of the medication, he wanted to know. This was something that was altering his life. He needed to know the cause. And if his doctor was not able to help him, he would find someone who could. His social circle, sanity, and maybe even his life, depended on it.
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Not much to say today. Maybe the start of something bigger? Probably not, but maybe.
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