A bright smile bloomed on Kaitlyn’s lips as she entered the library. She was pretty excited! She had her first assignment for the Healer Internship, which she had previously signed up for. Her primary aspiration for the internship was to help people, and she honestly couldn’t think of a better way than through healing … which was similar to muggle medicine. Naturally, she had no idea what the future had in store for her, especially as she continued through her seven years at Hogwarts. But she knew she wanted to help people at least.
The young Slytherin skipped to the medical ailments section of the library, taking a promising book off the shelf. She sat on the ground near the shelf, adjusting her skirt in the process. Her blue eyes glowed as she glanced through the index. ‘Narcolepsy.’ Smiling, she skimmed through the book until she found the necessary section. A slight frown formed on her lips by the distinctive lack of information. ‘When has that ever stopped me, though?’
‘This is an ailment with the symptoms of not just regular fatigue … but intense fatigue. It apparently gets so bad that you fall asleep at random times … It is categorized as a sleep disorder … a chronic one at that. Ah … there may have been a notable case of Narcolepsy in the magical community … Merwyn Finwick from the Tutshill Tornados Quidditch team. He played as a keeper. This book shows that this condition may have been the reason for the team’s loss,’ she noted as she finished skimming through the book. The whole time, she took notes neatly in cursive on a sheet of parchment she had splayed out on the floor before her.
Her blue eyes grew as a thought occurred to her. ‘Wait … If there isn’t much about Narcolepsy as a magical illness … the muggle version should work, too. Mr. Baird didn’t mention I couldn’t do that …’ Kaitlyn hopped from her spot on the floor and fluidly returned the first book. She scanned the shelves, finding one on muggle ailments, and returned to her spot on the floor. Her eyes sparkled as she found where Narcolepsy was mentioned.
‘Muggle science views narcolepsy as unsolvable, where the sleep-wake cycle is impacted. So, even with a whole night of rest, people with this ailment would still feel so sleepy! This includes symptoms such as excessive daytime sleepiness, muscle weakness, sleep paralysis, fragmented sleep patterns, and insomnia. The muggle treatment of narcolepsy … well, I shouldn’t say treatment. It isn’t curable, after all. But, it can be managed through medication, such as central nervous stimulants, amphetamine stimulants, and antidepressants. Although … as seen a lot with muggle medicine, many drugs have unfortunate side effects. So, lifestyle changes are probably the easiest to help manage narcolepsy. These include scheduling short naps, maintaining a sleep schedule, exercising, and avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and smoking too late in the day.’
Kaitlyn brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and sighed. ‘Sooo much information!’ Her blue eyes looked at the notes she took on her parchment … all in her perfect script handwriting. ‘I’ll have to parse through the work and decide what I’d like to present to Mr. Baird. And for that matter, how to present it. There are so many options. At least I finished this early, so I’d have time to decide what to do,’ she thought.
Humming quietly, Kaitlyn packed her bag and jumped to her feet. She returned the book to its shelf and skipped out of the library to head to her dorm. Perhaps there, she could decide what to do for this project … or at least see what supplies she had in stock.
