Sleep or Swim?

My body and brain must miss the recreational swimming I enjoyed before I had epilepsy.

Three of the last four nights, I’ve woken up in the wee hours drenched in sweat. I mean, drenched. Through-the-sheets, through-the-duvet-cover-and-the-duvet, stringy-hair drenched. Gross and uncomfortable? Yes. Disconcerting? Also a yes.

I’m not particularly worried that these four-in-the-morning swimfests are anything to be overly concerned about. There are several plausible explanations for them, including medicine changes and good old-fashioned hypermetabolism, which has consistently hampered my weight-recovery efforts over the years. My body is really, really good at being really, really inefficient at processing the energy I so diligently—and, sometimes, so painfully—feed it.

(Please don’t say that you wish you had this problem. Trust me, you don’t. It sucks.)

I’ve noticed slow but steady improvement in the perspiration department as the week’s gone on. On Friday night, I only soaked through my bedding and bedclothes from the waist up; last night, the party was confined to my shoulders-to-head region. Could tonight be the night that just my noggin goes for a salty dip? Only time will tell.

This is a good lesson in radical acceptance. It’s tempting to interpret this as a sign from … the water gods? … that I should pull back. Maybe I’m not meant to eat this much! Maybe I should stop taking the medications that help control my seizures but cause other annoying problems!

But I’ve learned the hard way that trying to micromanage my physiology is a recipe for disaster. As it turns out, being a doctor of something doesn’t make me a medical one. Much as I’d like to call the shots, I have to leave this to the experts. Meanwhile, my husband will keep the washer busy processing sweat-soaked sheets, and I’ll keep my mouth busy nourishing my body.