On waking up in the middle of the night

Someone used to call me pokey because I slept so late. I did that for a long time while my body was adjusting to all the things I had gone through.

I'm still pokey in many ways, such as getting out of the house. But instead of sleeping too late, I have been waking up too early, usually between 4 and 4:30 a.m. It stared about four months ago. Of course I looked it up and saw that waking up in the middle of the night is not uncommon. I mentioned it to some friends who had the same issue. I fall asleep fine but then wake up when it's too early to get up. I try the things that you're supposed to do: progressive relaxation, three-part breathing, thinking of something calming. My yoga teacher, Justine, said to try putting on my eye pad, so I have done that too.

If I give up, I know that checking my iPhone ruins my chance of getting back to sleep. Who's on Facebook, who's Tweeting, who might be emailing in the middle of the night. I did that for a while, until someone pointed out to me that the screen is the worst, and these seven tips for falling back asleep confirmed it. Stress is said to be a factor, but I don't feel any more, or less, stressed than usual. Sometimes I think it comes from writing too far into the evening, causing my brain to go into overdrive that wakes me up at night. A person could get stressed out just wondering about it.

Today, I slept until 5:30 and thought that was great. Maddie woke up at about the same time; I got her to lie down for another 15 minutes or so. Still, I had to rush to get out of the house to get to the Literacy Project in Northampton on time for my 9:15 a.m. volunteer tutoring job. I had decided I had to use the over-ripe bananas to make banana bread. Then I got glued to the morning shows, watching the news about politics and about the Paris attacks. I can't say why that took three hours, but it did.

Observation of the day: If you take the four small Polish pottery bowls down from the cabinet and put them on the counter and balance them with your left hand while reaching up with your right hand for the larger one in which to put the spaghetti you are cooking, one of them is likely to fall onto your tile floor. And break into a million pieces. And if you close the door to the kitchen to eat your pasta in the dining, your mess will still be there when you go back in.

Reflections on a birthday and a baby visit

A funny thing happened to me yesterday when I went for the day-before-my-birthday lunch with Ben, Meghan and Nell in Fairfield: In this age of Facebook where I am as guilty as the next person of sometimes oversharing photos, I didn't take any at all.

I was actually in the moment. How crazy is that? Although it's good to have everything so easily documented on our iPhones and tablets, "the old days," when you had to actually reach for a real camera, had advantages.

I took the accompanying photo off Facebook, just so you can see. Next time I will have someone take a photo or two or three of me with her, just so everyone knows I was there.

But yesterday, I looked at Ben walking around with Nell so peacefully cradled in his arms and thought for a second, oh that would make a nice picture, but I didn't reach for my phone. I sat on the couch next to Meghan while Nell was on Meghan's lap and held out my pointer finger and my granddaughter wrapped her tiny fingers around it. I touched her perfect, soft skin, and watched Meghan do a funny thing – she heard that if you stick your tongue out the baby will do the same thing  – and it happened! Of course she also showed she has a good set of lungs by scrunching up her little face and screaming and bicycling her legs.

She has sweet bow-shaped lips and also, something interesting, a tiny chip on the top side of her ear just the same as Ben's. Meghan said she's going to look like Ben; she hopes Nell will have more hair, and I said don't worry because if she looks like Ben she will look like Katie (because Katie and Ben look alike) and she'll have beautiful, lush hair.

Ben, Meghan and Nell gave me a pretty black tennis skirt and two cans of balls. Joe stopped by to say hello and to give me an I.O.U. for a gift from the U.S. Open.

So, it's my birthday. Ben wrote on my card, happy sweet 61. It is sweet in so many ways. And also, time to think of how many birthdays I have had. Those 61 plus the others with the clock resetting with my four transplants. Let's just count the good one, Jan. 31, 2009, so either I am six years and eight months (yes, I still count them), or, as I said in a stage whisper if you can do that when typing, 61.

At 48 when all of this started, the future did not look so bright. And as I wrote after Nell's birth, I said many times, "I'm never going to see my grandchildren," especially on that dark night in December 2008 when I had relapsed again and thought I was at the end of the road.

What a long strange trip it's been. (Thank you Grateful Dead.)

Thank you Denise, Dana-Farber and everyone else.