Having been diagnosed myself about six years ago, I feel pretty
qualified to offer up this diagnostic checklist:
- You fall asleep at your desk more
than three times per day and now have bruises on your forehead from
hitting the keyboard. The letter "H" is permanently stamped into
your right eyebrow.
- You eat
like there's no tomorrow yet manage to lose 50 pounds. And you only
weighed 85 to start with.
- You
basically have the flu 7x24x365 - not counting overtime - you have it then
too.
- Even
though you have the flu, you manage to catch every illness currently
circulating in Australia, even though you live in Dubuque, Iowa.
- You
often think you would kick butt on Survivor, mainly because they don't eat food.
- While
sitting in clinical waiting rooms, you've made up your own Latin names for
every gastro-intestinal test procedure known to man. When you ran out of Latin words, you
resorted to pig Latin. OlonoscopyCay's suck.
- You're
pretty convinced that you have been abducted by aliens. They've removed
all digestive organs from your body and filled the void with achy pain
generating devices. Like ThighMasters or something. While they were at it, they also
dosed you with an extra craving for the forbidden fruit you cannot have - Krispy Kreme Donuts.
That should about cover it.
Anyway, that's how I found out I have Celiac - after a one and a half
year study of all medical institution waiting rooms up and down the eastern seaboard. By the
way, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has the crappiest cafeteria food ever,
especially if you're a Celiac. More on that later, I have a bone to pick with
some of my specialists…
My wife and I (God bless her patience with this!) decided to
start this Web site to try to help others who are having similar Celiac
adventures and running from the Gluten monster. I figure I've had a couple
thousand conversations with people over the past six years trying to explain
this whole Celiac thing with little success. I've run across people newly
diagnosed with Celiac and have struggled to figure out a better way to help
them get started - there's a really big learning curve to this thing. Those little Glutens are just about everywhere. So here
we are.
If you've just gotten The Diagnosis, don't fret! All the tests you just went through
hopefully tell you that there are 2,371 horrible things that you DON'T have,
including Gout and Rabies. Well, speaking for myself anyway. Once you get the hang of this thing, life
is good. Yes, eating at restaurants is a
bummer, because they are all out to get you. But besides that, there's a lot to
be positive about.
My wife will be contributing to this blog too, so I have to be
honest and admit that I fall into the occasional self pity well, especially
when we're on the road and people start eating nice and oily extra cheese and
pepperoni pizza… My life sucks… Stop! Think positive! Sorry, almost fell in for a moment there. All
better now. At least until I drive by another Mellow Mushroom.
I'm looking forward to sharing this journey with
you. If you have an irrational need to blog about disgusting intestinal
procedures like I do, let me know in the comments - I am building a blog roll
and would be happy to post your link on this site.
