Every night for six weeks after the diagnosis, I woke up with a start at 2 or 3 a.m. and became hysterical for an hour or two. I woke my husband, Glenn. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It'll be fine," he said. In the end, my doc and I decided I was suffering side effects from the sleeping drug zolpidem (Ambien).



I also experienced nighttime

sleepwalking, during which I ate half a pumpkin pie, a carton of ice cream, and a big chunk of good cheese. I had no memory of these picnics, I just saw the added pounds. So I gradually got off the zolpidem.