Chapter 3
Unfortunately, Paul didn’t stay awake much past getting through his own front door. After dinner, Stephanie drove him home and he fell asleep almost immediately. The following nights went right back to his usual routine and Paul lost the optimism he’d felt that night at Stephanie’s house.
After another week of his normal sleep cycle, he decided it was time to take Jeff up on his offer. A meeting with a representative from Astralis was set for the following Thursday during one of their normal lunchtime sessions. By the time that day came around, Paul was surprised to find he was a little excited.
The representative from Astralis was the kind of person Paul might have expected a medical clinic to send. He was small, mostly bald, with little round glasses perched on a rather large nose. He had dark brown eyes, an easy smile, and a nasally, scratchy, high-pitched voice. All in all, he was a very unassuming man who didn’t necessarily inspire confidence, but certainly didn’t instill distrust, either.
“I’m very pleased to finally meet you, Paul,” he began after they’d all settled in. “My name is Kendall Dittrich. Ever since Mr. Justice called—”
“Please, just call me Jeff.”
“Of course. Ever since Jeff called and told us about you, we’ve been excited at the prospect of meeting you and having a chance to help you with your problem.” Lifting a clipboard from a soft leather briefcase next to his chair, he flipped over the top page and held a pen at the ready. “It is my job to interview you, screen you, and decide whether Astralis can actually help you. I’m sure you will be doing the same thing yourself; deciding whether you feel comfortable with what we have to offer. So at any time during this meeting if you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to voice them and I will answer them to the best of my ability.”
“Thank you, it’s nice to meet you too,” Paul said. “I suppose I should start right off the bat with the most obvious and important question for me: how much?”
Dittrich cocked his head sideways and narrowed his eyebrows. “How much?” he parroted. “As in price?” He cast a quick look at Jeff. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I thought it would be better coming from you,” Jeff replied.
“Of course,” Dittrich replied, smoothing the lapels of his sport coat and sitting up a little straighter. “Astralis is a non-profit organization completely funded by grants from the government. Sleep study is a very hot topic and although we do not pursue any specific goal for them, we do share all of our findings.” Holding one cautionary finger up, he continued, “There are, of course, some policies and laws that we must adhere to in order to continue to receive that funding. Specifically, no drugs or chemicals that have not been FDA approved can be administered on our premises, nor can any patient be committed. All patients must be voluntary and treated on an out-patient basis. In other words, all patients are free to leave the grounds any time they wish, for as long as they wish.”
Wow, thought Paul.
Dittrich nodded encouragingly. “Because of the government funding, Astralis is able to offer its services completely free of charge. It is my job to determine who is eligible, a very crucial position within the company. If word were to get out that our clinic performed its work at no cost, we would be inundated with everything from hypochondriacs to homeless people. I personally interview every candidate and make a determination on numerous factors. First and most obvious being whether or not there is a real need for our services.”
Paul absorbed the information, a little stunned. “Honestly, Mr. Dittrich, this sounds almost too good to be true. There must be some sort of catch. No one does anything for nothing.”
“In that, you are absolutely correct,” Dittrich answered. “Dr. Abrams, the founder and director of the clinic, has a very personal reason for the work he does. You see, his family has been stricken with sleep disorders for as many generations as its history can trace. Although Dr. Abrams himself does not suffer from any such problems, he has relatives who do. Some of them…” Dittrich paused and cleared his throat quietly. “Some of them suffer quite intensely from very unique issues. Dr. Abrams has made it his life’s pursuit to find a permanent cure for the malady that seems to be embedded into the gene pool of his family tree.”
Jeff leaned forward in his chair. “This Dr. Abrams sounds like a great man, a man who works from the heart. The world needs more of his kind.”
“Indeed,” answered Dittrich gravely.
Paul looked from Jeff to Dittrich, asking, “And how is it that the two of you know each other?”
Both men opened their mouths to answer at the same time. Dittrich nodded his assent for Jeff to go ahead with the answer.
“It was at a psychologist’s convention in Nashville,” Jeff replied. “The convention was focused on the idea that most stress-related problems could be solved through the analysis of a person’s dreams. It was really fascinating stuff. You see, the premise of the whole thing was that most people’s dreams contain their subconscious thoughts—whether those are memories or deep-seated desires, those thoughts can lead the analyst to…”
Dittrich quietly cleared his throat again and looked at Jeff apologetically. Jeff smiled and nodded.
“I suppose all of that isn’t why we’re here,” Jeff said. “To make a long story short, Mr. Dittrich delivered a short lecture on sleep deprivation and the effects it could have on a person, specifically on teenagers. The content was so interesting to me, because of the work I do here, of course, that I absolutely had to introduce myself to him afterward. We ended up having a beer and a wonderful discussion in the hotel bar later that afternoon. He told me all about Astralis and the work they do. He gave me his card and told me if I ever ran across anyone who might benefit from his organization’s help to give him a call. And so now, here he is.”
Dittrich smiled and spread opened his hands in a mock introductory pose. “Here I am.”
“Sleep deprivation, huh?” asked Paul, disappointed. “Well, if that’s your field of expertise and what is studied at Astralis, I’m afraid you may have come all this way for nothing.”
Dittrich’s gaze was an unspoken invitation for Paul to explain.
“As I’m sure Jeff explained when he called you, I sleep just fine,” Paul began. “That’s the problem. I sleep too much. I can’t stop myself from it. It isn’t narcolepsy. They’ve already tested me for that. It is way too timed, too specific. I’ve been to doctors. I know why I get so tired. It’s from high levels of adenosine and melatonin in my system during the time between sunset and sunrise. I just can’t find anyone that can figure out why it happens. The trigger. If your research is focused on finding ways to help people get a good night’s sleep, then I’m definitely not a candidate for your program.”
“Paul,” Dittrich put a hand on the arm of his chair. “Sleep deprivation is just one of the many facets of disorders that we study at Astralis. There are others like you. Not many, only a handful to be truthful, but there are others and many of them are at Astralis right now. And they are all trying to find a way to either cure their ailment or live within the confines that it creates. I hope you’ll take some comfort in knowing that your problem is not yours alone. We’ve studied people with your problem for decades, and although we still haven’t found a way to change it, we’ve come a little bit closer to understanding the science of it.
“I wish I could promise you that all we’ll have to do is give you a pill or an injection and you’ll be cured, but I can’t. I can’t even give you a timeline or a guideline that we would follow for treatment. You are special and the only known cases like yours are those that Astralis has documented. Our understanding of how it works and how we can treat it changes constantly. So we try new, non-harmful methods of treatment with that same constancy.
“What I can promise you is that at Astralis, you’ll find others who can truly relate to you. They are going through the exact same thing. Your feeling of isolationism is the same as theirs and your feeling of being different is shared.
That sharing, we have found, has done more to help than any medical treatment we have been able to develop. It hasn’t changed the symptoms, but it has most certainly done wonders for patient morale and, subsequently, quality of life.” Dittriched leaned toward Paul, enforcing the importance of what he said next. “At Astralis, you will find a place where you feel you belong. A couple of the patients with your condition are close to your age, and I’m sure you’ll find that you have a great deal in common with them.”
Paul looked into Dittrich’s eyes, trying to read him, and found only truth. He looked at Jeff, whom he trusted more than most people in his life, and received an encouraging nod.
“What about school?” Paul asked.
“Your school would continue with no interruption through a program at Astralis.”
“And visitors?”
“Within reason, you can have any visitors at any time on any day.”
Paul felt any reservations he’d had against going begin to fade away. “I’ll have to speak with my friends and family first. My mom will want to meet with you and probably with Dr. Abrams, too. I guess as long as she doesn’t find anything wrong with the idea of me trying this out, I’d be willing to see how it goes.”