Risks of MS Fatigue in the Professional Musician and Suggestions for Coping

1. Be a professional musician who chooses to teach private lessons.
2. Teach private lessons to young pianists and french hornists of various ages and skill levels.
3. Have a little (debilitating) MS fatigue which fortunately responds well to Provigil, albeit at the higher doses costing about $18/day.
4. Taper Provigil use over the holidays, simply going day by day, stop when you drop, and go when you can.
5. Return from the holiday break, forget how much brain power and energy is actually required to teach one-on-one music lessons, and go it alone without the help of pharmaceuticals.
6. Fiercely fight the pull to disengage, blink repeatedly to attempt to regain visual focus, and try really hard not to let the student catch you with your eyes closed at any moment.
7. Be sure to smile as usual and sound peppy (children respond to your energy), be encouraging and try really hard to remember how and what they just did, and avoid saying uuhhhm as it makes you sound distracted.
8. Never calculate how many hours remain in your workday, since even before MS a 4-hour teaching day is equivalent to working an 8-hour day in an office, but without the breaks.
9. Question why it is you ever thought that teaching from 2:30pm to 9:00pm, without a pre-teaching nap and without drugs, was a good idea.
10. Remember (after 2 torturous days) to take some Provigil and easily determine if it really does help or not.
    
    I'll see you tomorrow. MS fatigue or not, and hopefully coherent.