A recurrent annoyance for the HIV+ is the 'night sweat' – it's a sort of peculiar demi-symptom of nothing in particular, where you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night soaked in a cold sweat. I can't remember the details, but I think it happens literally over about ten to fifteen minutes – a sudden change in body temperature, like a miniature fever, then it's done.
I had always assumed that it represented some kind of physical weakness – i.e., your body is in a fragile state, with alarm and defense systems going on at erratic intervals, and this is a sort of immune system glitch. What is wrong with that, however, is that my immune system has been operating at a fairly high level for some four or five years – very nearly normal (though, admittedly, I don't know my test results since this winter's side-effect illness).
And yet, for the past four or five months, perhaps once or twice a month – including last night – I will suddenly waken, the sheets wet...
Very odd. I suppose it must actually be a symptom of the virus itself, rather than a side effect of an immune system having a rough ride. It does of course make me feel at home with the guys who have lived longest with the virus here in Newcastle – Steve, David, Bob and so on.
But it is always a weird surprise: and perhaps, over a few years when I'm being demanding, and calculating, over having a more exact expectation of my health and life expectancy (for which read: anxiety over the plausibility of completing studies at the Jung-Institut), it is a weird and confusing symbol.
Not of anything in particular – just, well, a symbol....
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