On the last day of mid­dle school, before winter break, I remember hitting my fluffy pillow and thinking to myself, “Thank God school is over!”  A few days later I woke up from the longest nap my doctors had ever heard of.

Though now awake, I still felt half-asleep.  I saw trails behind moving objects like a drugged hero’s vision in a movie.  I shrugged it off, attributed my problem to exhaustion, and went to bed that night expecting sleep to refresh me.  Twelve hours later, I woke up feeling even more tired than before.  I went to sleep again for another eight or ten hours, waking sporadically with the feeling that I was dreaming.  This cycle would come to characterize my affliction, one that panicked my parents and puzzled many doctors.

Despite Houston’s impressive medical reputation, it took several specialists many years to find an accurate diagnosis.  As those years passed, I continued to have random temporary occurrences, and my parents and I began to lose hope.  

In November 1998, nearly five years after my first episode, doctors finally found the correct diagnosis: Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), a rare sleeping disorder characterized by, among other things, hypersomnolence (an excessive need for sleep).  They told me there were no effective treatments.  Their only suggestions were to eat right, sleep right, and exercise—things everybody knows and I ought to have done anyway but didn’t.  Perhaps I was a little skeptical of the diagnosis after so many years of being misdiagnosed, and like most kids, wanted to be normal.  But living the life of an average American teenager is not enough to stay healthy—everyone has heard that on the news a thousand times, but I experienced the effects first-hand.  In the spring of 2001, my sophomore year at UT, I withdrew from school and knew that I had to change. 

First off, I couldn’t be a night owl like a typical college student; I went to bed by 11:00 p.m. every night in order to awake at exactly 7:30 a.m.  Eventually, my Circadian rhythm attuned itself so well to my routine that I didn’t even need an alarm clock. 

Tackling exercise became my next goal.  I had always hated exercise and thought it was unnecessary because I wasn’t overweight.  But I was resolved to change my lifestyle.  Initially, I couldn’t run very far; now, I run three miles on a consistent basis.  I begrudged it at first, but over the course of a few years, it became as familiar as brushing my teeth.                                   

            Before I initiated my lifestyle changes, the threat of another episode always loomed, but I don’t fear KLS anymore.  In retrospect, it was a catalyst for change, not a handicap.  It forced discipline in my life and helped me to appreciate something that most people take for granted during their youth—their health.