“Start now. Start where you are.” –  Ijeoma Umebinyuo

This is the first of my new challenge to write daily for 15 minutes over 9 days, starting today, Monday, June 08, 2026. After countless inconsistencies, I decided to set a modest goal and will gradually raise the bar once I reach each milestone.

A smooth sail

I am feeling better after a week of seeing myself drifting back to the valley of depression. I had thought this June would be the gentlest one in the past two years since I tumbled down into the valley.

Life again proved me wrong.

I started the first day, also the first Monday, of June as I imagined by making my bed, doing 15 minutes of workout, reading a book for 30 minutes. I went to the hair salon in my neighborhood for a haircut – I prefer to get a new haircut at the start of a month – and headed to a spa less than 5 minutes’ walk from my home for a two-hour session.

The session wound up in only 60 minutes by my choice. The spa received a walk-in client who said she was happy to wait until my session ended. But I found it hard to let a pregnant woman wait that long. I offered to cut mine short and said I would return the following morning for a full 120-minute body massage.

It turned out I couldn’t honor what I told the spa owner, also a good friend of mine.

I returned home from the spa around 13:00. Almost falling asleep on the way back on my motorbike, I imagined I would lie down on the floor in my bedroom for a power nap.

A U-turn

I scrapped my napping plan soon after I set foot in the living room. Mango, my less-than-one-year-old poodle, couldn’t stand on her four legs. The rear ones collapsed in front of me, which sent chills to my spine given she almost lost her voice the day earlier.

Without a thought, I picked her up and called my trusted cab driver to take us to the vet hospital about 3 kilometers away. Luckily, he was available. He seemed to be the only one in town who never wears a strained smile when driving my puppies to see vets. I also choose him for long-distance trips in my own car, which my younger brother drives for daily commuting.

When we got to the hospital, Mango managed to walk around as soon as I placed her on the floor. No collapse at all! Luckily for her, the founding doctor was there and gave her a thorough examination. Everything seemed fine, he said to me, adding that all her symptoms at home might have boiled down to her severe dehydration. “Mango is a light eater, consuming just enough to maintain her slender build,” I told the doctor when picking her up from the examination table.

He suggested giving her IV fluid and asked me to come and pick her up before 7 p.m. When I returned there, a young vet-cum- hospital manager drew her blood sample for a test following my request. The results came out good.

(I have used up all the 15 minutes. I will finish this entry anyway).

The vet asked me to bring Mango back the day after for another IV infusion and said she might need to get 3 to 5 daily infusions.

Collapse follows collapse

My worries rocketed soon after we returned home with the same driver. When I placed her on the floor in our living room, Mango couldn’t stand. Now all the four legs collapsed despite how hard she strived to get back.

Collapse after collapse. She couldn’t manage to stand up by herself after each collapse.

I kept a constant eye on her and assisted her whenever she went around the house. The day that followed, the same vet decided to test her liver, scan her abdomen and do one more blood test as he failed to answer my question: “What is her main issue?”

The liver test result showed her liver wasn’t well with vital indicators 4-5 times higher than the normal range. That was June 2.

Nothing had improved until June 4 when the vet decided to change the medications, focusing on treating the liver and dehydration. As I requested, he agreed to take the blood tests almost every day. I wanted to make sure nothing quietly occurred in her body.

The passing of her younger sister, Strawberry, in late April over parvo took a great toll on my mental health and shipped me back to the valley of depression. She was the second puppy I lost in less than a year, and both passings taught me one of the biggest lessons in my life – the price I had to pay for letting my guard down.

Every day, I took Mango to the hospital in the mid-morning, staying there with her for 1-2 hours until the vets finished daily examinations and tests, and came back in the early evening to bring her home.

It had been raining since and that was why I had to take a cab back and forth to the hospital.

The rain eventually stopped on the fifth day, also when Mango showed signs of recovery. She collapsed less and started eating on her own. Part of her recovery was attributed to Ensure milk as the vet suggested, and the iron supplement for puppies that I checked with the chief doctor before giving to her.

No more collapse since June 6 and 7. And today was the last day she received the IV infusion.

The sun shines again

Yesterday I came on my motorbike to pick her up. She resisted stepping into her bag despite my multiple efforts. I wasn’t mad at all but felt happy as it showed she was well on the way back to herself.

One of her favorites – also her dad’s – was to stand with two rear legs on the rack leg shield guard on my Honda Wave motorbike. As she didn’t change her mind, I walked back to the hospital and bought a red leash to keep her safe during my ride.

Last night was the second night that I slept all the way to the early morning without waking up to help her pee. On her third night of sickness, I fell asleep and woke up to find her lying helplessly in her own water because she lacked the strength to walk to her restroom and lift herself up. She had got stranded like that once earlier, in the evening, without anyone nearby until I walked from upstairs following a long call with my cousin.  

A rough week finally ended. It came as a reminder that I should always get myself ready for unexpected uncertainties. When they show up, I should find ways to adapt to them and dance with them.

This morning I woke up with a slight headache and an inclination to lie down after I washed my face and flossed my teeth. To help me get through it, I decided to walk Mango and her dad Happy around the neighborhood – the first walk since early April when she caught parvo mysteriously and transmitted it to her little sister Strawberry.

I got a bit better after an 11-minute walk. To keep the momentum going, I did 1-km indoor run while learning French on Duolingo and ended with doing over 3 minutes of Japanese Radio Taiso, nearly 8 minutes of Flow and 5 minutes of Blender Fitness.

No chess on Duolingo so far today. Recently, I found myself addicted to learning and playing global chess with Oscar and other learners on Duolingo. I have three Duolingo accounts, named after my puppies with Strawberry as the latest. I created a new account under her name one day after Strawberry passed in memory of her. If I hadn’t missed one day along the way, today my streak would be 46.

That meant our little Strawberry had left us for 47 days. She flew back to heaven just one day before her 3-month birthday.

Build streaks of good habits

I got a 20-minute power nap after a belated lunch and then headed to the hospital to pick up Mango. It is 17:28 on my end.

Today, I marked on the Streaks app these building habits:

1. Wake up before 7 a.m. – streak 9.

2. Make bed – streak 2 (It has been my established habit, but I didn’t track it until yesterday.)

3. Drink 300ml warm water – streak 8 (though it has become a second nature for nearly 1 year, I started to track it one day after I started using the app Streak).

4. Floss my teeth – streak 1 (I started to track it today to make it a daily habit).

5. Exercise for 15 minutes – streak 9 (I linked Streaks to my Apple Health app).

6. Mindfulness for 10 minutes – streak 3 (I lost the streak in between).

7. Writing for 15 minutes – streak 1 (my too bad as I kept losing the streak!).

8. Reading a book for 30 minutes – streak 1 (I got back to daily reading after losing the streak at least twice). I am on page 52 of the Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

9. Run 1.1 km – streak 10.

10. Learn French for 10 minutes – streak 1 (after multiple streak losses).

11. Learn Spanish for 10 minutes – streak 1 (the first day I track my Spanish learning).

12. Take 1 cod liver oil tablet – streak 2 (I kept forgetting to take it daily).

13. Take vitamin D – streak 1 (This was prescribed by my doctor as he said my vitamin D blood level was severely low. I had to take liquid vitamin D every fortnight. And I just missed a beat.)

14. Take a multivitamin – weekly streak 1 (Thanks to taking Berocca first thing in the morning, I felt better to start my day).

15. Walk puppies – streak 9. (I usually do so in the evening when the neighboorhood gets quiet).

These are my little wins for the day. Adding to the list was my taking a shower for the first time in the afternoon, instead of before or after midnight, an unhealthy habit I have been living with for years.

That is all for today. I couldn’t believe I had produced 1,628 words in 60 minutes versus 15 minutes as I challenged myself. If you have read through this line, I sincerely thank you for reading my first piece of the challenge series.

I thank myself for making it through the first day. I will keep rolling the ball tomorrow for a second-day streak. Goodbye and wish you a wonderful day on your end!

“In life you can fall down 1000 times but the point is to have the willingness to stand up and to start again.” – Jose Mujica

Lavender Papaya

[1. Monday, June 08, 2026]

Quote credits: Ijeoma Umebinynuo, an American – Nigerian writer and artist; Jose Mujica, former President of Uruquay.