CHALLENGE: “Creature of Habit. What good habits, (health or otherwise,) do you have? Do you have a routine that you follow every morning? Are there any bad habits you wish you could break? #HAWMC”
So… I have to take you into a day in the life of a Ninja. Given the essence of the challenge, I think it’s the only rational thing to do.
NOTE: Writing in bold is a recollection of mainly true events with creative license being taken. Italics are thoughts that enter my mind. Regular text is pure fiction. I apologize for getting a bit carried away with this post. We are in the middle of a few life stresses at the moment and I was able to escape reality as I was writing this.
5:30am
My eyes pop open as the alarm begins to sound. I jump out of bed as quick as a flash and roundhouse the phone into the wall shattering the phone into a million pieces. That’ll teach it to wake me from my slumber again! I swiftly and silently make my way to the closet where I place my warm, fuzzy slippers over my feet and robe myself in a warm cloak, tying it securely into place. I dash over to the bedroom door and quietly open it, moving through the shadows down the hallway and into my kitchen. I slowly open the cabinet doors and snatch up my sublingual B12 pills and my multivitamin gummies.
I clean up the mess in the kitchen from the night before. The grease in the pan decides to give me trouble, so I drop-kick it into the dishwasher where it belongs. Suddenly, the dust bunnies began swarming me and it’s a fierce battle between life and death. I finally subdue them with a swish of the brush and dust pan. Their fate has been sealed… but then I notice a rumble in my stomach. I’m hungry. I prepare for the worst by taking Citrucel and I pour myself a bowl of cereal. As I’m pouring the milk, I notice that it’s colder than ever. This can only mean one thing. It is going to attempt to torture me by trying to kill every one of my teeth with it’s icy white liquid of goodness. It’s no match for 15 seconds in the microwave however. Crisis averted. I downed the cereal before anyone could notice.
Suddenly, another rumbling starts erupting in the pit of my bowels. Could it be my colon coming back to haunt me!? No, it is the basilisk (gas and waste) within my Chamber of Secrets (j-pouch)… and he is very upset. I make my way into the half bath where we battle it out for 15-20 minutes or longer, but I triumph, as usual… not two seconds after my victory I notice I’ve been wounded–BUTT BURN. I make a mad dash to the cabinet where I find my Calmoseptine! HA! Foiled again you Chamber with your cursed basilisk! And then, I notice the clock!
7:00am
Darn. I decide to free the cat from his cozy room and begin to wash the ferret who struggles madly to get away from being tortured by a nice warm bath and massage as I lather her up with ferret shampoo. I dry her fur and place her into her litterbox where she chooses not to “go.” She runs off to get into some other mischief and in the background, I hear something that sounds like something nasty coming up a drain pipe… but no, I’m not that fortunate. The cat has just chosen to empty it’s stomach all over the new rug.
The vomit is a devilish foe I know all too well. It has attacked me on numerous occasions in my visits to the bathroom. I’m able to subdue the beast with paper towels and a vinegar mix. Another crisis has been averted… but not before I catch the ferret deciding to relieve herself on my wood floors! Curse it all! Why do we even have pets!? I question my love for both of the creatures now staring at me with their big wet eyes. I make another mad dash to clean up the filth the chittering animal has left for me. I do not have time for these games!
I look at the time again.
8:00am
After a mad chase with the ferret, I capture the short-legged animal and place her back in her sleeping quarters for the day and rush to the coffee pot. My temper is short as I pound the beetle-like beans with my fists into a fine powder. Then I force the coffee pot to do my bidding. I make my way back to the bedroom where I slip into my ninja gear and wake my husband by sneaking up behind him and gently waking him by tapping him on the head with my trusty spoon. He falls out of bed, as usual and I leave the room before he notices that I’m there. I make my mug of coffee and drink deeply. Heaven.
8:30am
I make my way to the office and notice that my husband has a knot on his head. When I question him about this, he mutters some nonsense about ponies and unicorns. I may have broken him again. Curses! I’m too strong for my own good. I press the “on” button for my computer. The boot is slow, and I’m losing my patience again. I don’t have enough spoons for this.
I go through the rest of my morning battling land owners and their heirs from the 1800’s. The papers also decide to gang up on me by giving me multiple paper cuts while the printer decides to become constipated. I reach into it’s mechanical bowels to free it of the offending paper. A fierce battle continues until another rumbling begins… it is my stomach, again, telling me that it is unhappy with me.
11:30am
I glance at my husband to ask if he’s hungry. He merely comments on the brightness of Mars. My eyes dart to the window. The sun is shining. How hard did I strike him with that spoon? I down some Imodium (again, attempting to calm the basilisk) and begin making sandwiches. We sit down to eat and I try to have a rational discussion with my husband who is now cross-eyed. I slap sense into him and he begins functioning normally again.
12:00pm
Lunch ends and my husband and I go back to work. I check my email. Several emails from the bossman (*ignore & delete* – another crisis averted). Note to self: knock sense into boss later. Another chaotic battle ensues as I come across another succession in which there are 20 heirs. Why must people multiply like rabbits!? It is then and there that I decide to invent a time machine that I might go back to before they started procreating and tell them that it will cause me a lot of pain and if they could just have the average American family size of 2.5 that would be very helpful and I wouldn’t have to kick them all in the face.
12:45pm
I briefly check my social media accounts and my colitisninja@gmail.com email. I attend to any business there and also talk about glitter infusions, unicorn feces and R. Kelly with my friends. We go into another battle as someone’s colon decides to explode and cause intense pain and after throwing a few Prednisone throwing stars at the cursed thing, it calms down and waits for another day. I’m on a roll today!
1:00pm
I get back to work and start nodding off at my desk. Where are my spoons? Sleep decides to take hold and I fight it with every ounce of my being as there is another rumble in the depths of my bowels. The basilisk has returned… Oh why did I eat all those vegetables for lunch!? I race to the bathroom at lightning speed and battle it out with the beast once again.
1:30pm
I emerge relatively unscathed, but the basilisk is being stubborn and has refused to be conquered. I’ll get you, just wait! Work continues and I do some tedious paperwork.
2:00pm
The clock, it teases me.
3:00pm
My hand cramps from the battle with the pencil and paper as I make extensive notes.
4:00pm, 4:05pm, 4:10pm… etc, etc, 4:30pm
I race to my kitchen before anyone can notice. And begin preparing another meal for me and my husband. I throw the chicken into the oven and savor the delicious smells coming from within. I almost forget to take more Citrucel as I toss food onto the plates and we enjoy another meal together. Halfway through the meal, the basilisk growls and churns viciously. I politely excuse myself as I knock my husband out of the way, trip over the cat and crawl the rest of the way to the bathroom with a broken toe.
The battle is relatively easy. A regular human on the outside looking in would think that I was being pummeled, but no, the basilisk just makes a big show of things by complaining loudly and with much force. 20-30 minutes later, after another triumph, I leave the bathroom and plop down on the couch. Relief!
6:00pm
I begin blogging, sketching, researching and chatting with my friends. This time the topic of conversation is a friend who is in the Emergency Room–again–waiting to be seen. We concoct a plan to get him/her seen by a doctor immediately. Piling into the glitter mobile with weaponry consisting of scalpels, pizzas, kittens and jars of glitter, we rush off to the Emergency Room. Another battle begins with paperwork, angry nurses who don’t understand Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, veins that refuse to cooperate and, obviously, angry colons.
9:00pm
By this time, all of the IBD ninjas are exhausted from the wars we wage day after day. After making sure everyone is relatively out of danger’s way, we disperse one by one and I begin my nightly routine.
My eyes water as I chew up my iron pill–why can’t everything taste like chocolate!? I put a drop of vitamin D on my tongue and chew up my calcium pill. Two more Imodium, and two Benadryl later, I swiftly enter the master bathroom to battle my teeth. They are rebelling against me again by protesting the water’s temperature. I wait for the water to warm up and then fight plaque and gum disease with a foamy toothbrush lathered up with “Sensodyne.” Not sure if it really helps, but I’ll try anything.
My attention turns to the water pick. It has been known to attempt to spray my teeth out of their sockets and threaten to put out my eye… five minutes later, looking very disheveled with water dripping down my chin, I place the water pick back into is cradle and make my way to the bed.
10:00pm
I punch the pillows, blankets and mattress until they conform to the contours of my body allowing for maximum comfort. At one point I have to axe kick a pillow who refuses me the proper softness. You will do as I say you foul beast! Another battle for sleep. My mind races with the worries of tomorrow… but I will take the challenges as they come. I slowly drift off to sleep and dream of a cure for Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
