When sleep is no longer a refuge

Now I lay me down not to sleep
I just get tangled in the sheets
I swim in sweat three inches deep
I just lay back and claim defeat

- "Who Needs Sleep" Barenaked Ladies

Sleep has no longer become the refuge for me that it is for the rest of you.

Now, when I close my eyes and lay down in bed my brain short-circuits, crosses wires, and I end up spending more hours having seizures than sleeping. Tonight, I laid down and talked with Heather for a while. We enjoyed getting to just talk to each other. The babies were asleep and we had a chance to just talk.

Heather fell asleep soon after we started talking, so I read for a few minutes, and then turned out the lights and fell asleep right behind her. Lately I've been trying to lie as closely as I can to her and hold her when I fall asleep hoping that that will somehow make a difference in my night.

I woke up an hour later to have Heather standing over me with a bottle of Diet Pepsi in her hand.
"What's this for?"
"Your panic attack."
"What panic attack?"
"The one you just had."
"Are you serious?"
"I know when you have panic attacks."
"I know you do." I took a long draw from the bottle. "I just didn't think I had one."
"It was very mild."
"What happened?"
"You just started shaking, then it stops and you wake up and call my name."

Every night, every hour, on the hour, this is my sleep. Sometimes I don't get to call my wife's name, I end up thrashing on the floor trying to eat my own tounge.

So tonight, gentle reader, I'm here with you while my wife tries to catch some sleep uninterrupted by my sudden onset of epilepsy. This is all so goddamn unfair. Why do I have to have epilepsy? Nighttime seizures? Who dreams this shit up? I still haven't heard back about my EEG yet, and the next step is a 24-hour ambulatory EEG, where I wear the machine all day, to work, to bed, to the bathroom, everywhere. I'm going to wear that machine until they give me some sort of definitive answer.