Craigslist Confessional: "What could this be? I kept thinking. Cancer? Have I had a stroke?"

I woke up suddenly, groggy and immediately in a bad mood. Pushing Ava’s sheets off with my legs, I reached for my phone.

9:13 pm.

I’m getting old, I thought to myself as I attempted to get out of bed. My feet felt weird—numb. I rubbed them on the rug to wake them up.

Ava was sitting alone in the kitchen, reading one of her books. I snuck up and gave her a kiss on the neck. She looked at me curiously.

“Finally!” she declared, studying my face.

“What…” I protested. “I was only asleep for—what, one, two hours?”

She cocked her head sideways. “Are you kidding, or what? You know it’s Sunday night, right? You’ve slept through the whole day.”

We watched a movie that night, and I insisted on going back to my apartment so that I could shower and get ready for work the next day. I went to sleep curiously tired again, and I woke up the next morning in the same foul mood.

I studied my feet as I put on socks. They looked normal, but the lack of sensation was getting worse. I went to work anyways, dismissing the issue as a temporary glitch that was bound to happen at my age. 

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