“Fall Backward” is everyone’s favorite Daylight Savings Time. Resetting clocks might be a pain, but who doesn’t enjoy that extra hour of sleep?

Ivan and me, apparently.

It’s Sunday morning. Our trusty iPhones switched automatically and woke us up at our traditional time, but on the updated schedule…which brings us to the first lame moment in my story. Instead of popping up unusually refreshed when Ivan’s alarm went off, we both groaned and drifted back to sleep. My alarm rang a few minutes later, but produced the same effect. I dragged myself to a seated position thirty minutes later, mumbling something about breakfast.

At this point we’d gotten an extra hour and a half of sleep but still felt like we were being dragged out of bed an indecent amount of early. You might think this is just normal “weekend mode” – except that it’s not. We never sleep in. (Yay for medication schedules!) The second lame moment in this story is all me. I started feeling funny right as I mumbled “muffins..breakfast…” As providence would have it, “breakfast” is a very powerful word in the mind of Ivan. Recently-baked pumpkin muffins motivated him to open his eyes, which he did…Just in time to watch me have a seizure. Poor Ivan was now very much awake without pumpkin muffins. I was even more not awake after a second seizure, but getting up was a must at this point. No medicine could happen until after muffins, and I needed muffins. Medicine, that is. 😉

I’m often unable to walk after a seizure episode, but Ivan guided a wobbly me to the table on my own two feet since I’d “only” had two seizures. He glanced at the clock after I sat down and then grabbed his phone. They were an hour different.  We’d just missed Daylight Savings Time! This brings us to the third lame point in our story. I’d just had fatigue seizures. Any time I have a seizure that’s not triggered by light, it’s been triggered by extreme tiredness. Apparently I was that tired – after sleeping in an hour and a half!

Last week had been an experimental week. We didn’t feel like I was strong enough for in-person visitors again, but I had a couple of necessary phone calls to make to Riverside. Two phone calls shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Both calls lasted longer than I expected, and I found myself exhausted on Tuesday and Thursday. I tried to proceed with my normal activities on the other days (I’m always surprised at just how far adrenaline, will-power, and a little caffeine can take you!) but I finally burned out on Saturday. I lounged around in pajamas feeling like I had the flu, which I knew I did not. What I did have was fatigue seizures the following morning. (Side note: Ivan’s excuse for being so tired on Sunday was less medical but still justifiable. He’d spent Saturday afternoon corralling Junior High kids and their parents for a school event, and then helped me around the house after he got home.)

Salvaging our Sunday became our shot at salvaging Ivan’s only day off that weekend. We ate all the pumpkin muffins, drank multiple pots of coffee throughout the morning, but only bolstered our status to half awake. Ivan ran across the street to Starbucks a little before 3 pm. At least it was a Bonus Stars day if you ordered lattes.

The fourth lame part of my story is mostly Ivan. Ivan is from another country, and is the master of making trans-Pacific flights sans jet lag. Case in point: In  June 2015 he touched down in LAX after a music tour in China, spent the night at a friend’s house, and then drove me up to see his parents the following day…in the Bay Area! It’s a seven hour drive. For the record, I did offer to drive part of the way so he could sleep, but he said “no” like a true gentleman. My true gentleman mustered even more energy to take me into San Francisco proper and propose a mere three days after our arrival.

All this to say, a measly one-hour time change should NOT take Ivan down along with it. My going down is a bit more plausible 😉

I’m sad to admit that church was not part of the Sunday we’d planned – or the Sunday we actually lived! The Lord’s admonition to “not neglect meeting together” (Heb. 10:25) is a command Ivan and I take very seriously. On the other hand, the Lord also created the human body and calls it the temple of the Holy Spirit. He instructs us to use His temple respectfully  (1 Corinthians 6:19), and we take that command seriously as well. Our church attendance remains an ongoing conversation, but for now we feel that keeping my body (specifically my brain) safe as much as possible is the right choice. We look forward to resuming our weekly visits as soon as we are able! In the meantime, we’re trying to make the best of our extended hiatus with all the sermons, worship music, etc., that are now easily accessible online. We’re grateful for God’s provision in that regard, but still realize that God wants good community as well as good content whenever possible – hence the importance of church.

But anyway…To everyone else who missed the boat last weekend…we’re right there with ya! We just hope you didn’t have to drink three servings of coffee and two shots of espresso before 3 pm.