A day in the life, and how to make it easier.

How Do I Live?

People with Crohn’s live differently than anyone else. Stress and diet are big factors in their day-to-day lives. So in this section I will tell you what I do day by day, what works for me and what does not.

I start my day like anyone else, with either an alarm clock going off or my wife telling me it’s time to wake up. We lie in bed for about ten to twenty minutes. During this time I collect my thoughts and think about what I did yesterday and what I need to do today. Doing this helps lower the stress in my life, so I don’t get surprised by events in my day that I could have prepared for that morning.

After this morning reflection it’s time to get up. One of the first things I do is head to each of my daughters’ rooms to wake them up, then go downstairs to make coffee. I know coffee is one of those no-no things in a Crohn’s diet, but you will find that some things in a Crohn’s diet you can have in moderation, and there are other things you need to avoid. As the coffee pot perks, I pick out work clothes and take a shower. By the time I head downstairs, my daughters have gotten up, gotten dressed and are making themselves breakfast. I get my coffee with non-dairy creamer and cane sugar. I have found that white sugar bothers me if I have too much of it throughout the day, so I try to cut as much of it out as possible.

Then I get ready for an hour-and-fifteen-minute drive to drop my daughter off at her mother’s for school, followed by the long trip to work. As I drive, I think all the time about the fact that one of these times I will need a bathroom. On all my routes to work I know where every stop is, which ones have good bathrooms and which ones have none, so that whenever I need one I know how far away it is and where I can stop. As a person who lives with Crohn’s, I spend a lot of time looking for bathrooms in public places, not knowing whether I will ever need one. But it is always good to know where every bathroom is so I can make it to one every time without worry.

My day at work is long but fun. I work with the public, so I have to make sure I keep my stress levels down no matter what comes in. About halfway through the day I take a lunch. Most days I bring my own, if I have time in the morning or the night before, so I can have a healthy lunch that meets my needs for the day. A nice thing about where I work is that we have a water station in the back where we can make coffee, tea and water.

After my work day finishes, I have an hour drive home. I take the same routes so I know where all the rest stops with the best bathrooms are. When I get home, dad mode turns on and I dig deep for the extra energy to get dinner ready, help with homework and do some chores so the house does not fall apart. Of course, my wife helps with these things too.

At about nine p.m. the girls wind down, get ready for bed and read. My wife and I spend a few minutes cleaning up the small things around the house so we are ready for the morning. We have found that taking a few minutes every night to get the small things ready saves us from running around like crazy people with no purpose. For example, I drink a cup of black coffee in the morning with a little bit of lactose-free creamer and something small to eat, so the night before I always set up the coffee pot with the water and coffee grounds.

By the time we finish that and clean up the small messes, the girls have read a little and are ready to go to sleep. We put them to bed and spend some time taking it easy, watching some of our favorite YouTubers and maybe having a little snack. It all depends on our mood. About ten thirty to eleven is when we make our way up to bed, where we take about ten minutes to wind down and then turn off the lights.

This is just a general day for me, but not every day is the same. Some days I have off, and I spend them doing the bigger things that need to be done around the house or small errands we need to run.