I had always been a good sleeper, until about the age of 30. At that time, my father was dying of metastatic breast cancer. I would wake up every night at 2:00 a.m., with a feeling that my chest was bound in steel armor. Those 2:00 a.m. wake-ups have been with me ever since, for the past 25 years. Now and then, I would work on my “sleep hygiene” by trying not to read my Kindle in bed and cutting back on caffeine.
A few weeks ago, I decided that my insomnia had gotten out of hand and asked a colleague for the name of a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
I called the psychologist, who informed me that her next available appointment was in six months. I booked the appointment (what is six months when you’ve had insomnia for a quarter of a century)? I also asked her to recommend a book about insomnia; perhaps I could start working on the problem on my own. I immediately purchased and read the book, and its recommendations cured my insomnia for about a week. I eliminated afternoon caffeine and started a “sleep journal,” in which I wrote out all my worries near bedtime, with the hope that they wouldn’t torment me at 2:00 a.m. I also started reading in the living room, going into the bedroom only when I felt very sleepy.
But then the insomnia returned, unannounced. Not exactly Churchill’s “black dog”; I will call it my “silver dog.” An illness—perhaps a serious one—has entered our family, and we still don’t have a diagnosis. The worry wouldn’t stay put in my sleep journal, and it crept in to interrupt my sleep.
But something was different this time. My husband and I have a silver miniature poodle named Stella. During the pandemic, I took her to a dog therapy training program so she could work as a “healing pup” at my hospital. But because of her exuberant extroversion, she was politely asked to leave the group. Lately, I have noticed that whenever I have insomnia, Stella follows me out of the bedroom, where my husband remains, and sleeps with me in various other rooms.
“She knows, she definitely knows,” my husband observed. What if he’s right—that Stella has found her true calling, and I my sleep therapist?
Karen E. Lasser
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts