Celi-ACK!

The view from the beach house we were renting when I found out my news...

About me:

My name is Rachel - I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease on July 1, 2014.  I have spent the last several days digesting this information and trying to make sense of the changes that I am going to have to make in my life.  I know that I'm not alone in this process, and I'm hoping that by journaling about my experience, it could help someone else in the same situation.

I figure I'd need to give a little back story about me and my journey to getting tested.  I haven't had typical celiac symptoms and there was never "that moment" that made think I'd have an auto-immune disease.

I am a 39 year-old mother of 4 girls and a wife to my amazingly supportive best friend.  Over the last several years, I've become very food aware.  I'm passionate about cooking, baking, reading about food, food activism and providing healthy meals for my family (can you see a pattern here?).  I love making foods that I could easily buy - yogurt, almond milk, butter, marshmallows etc.. I always have a very long "to-do" list and as the mom to 4 kids, the list keeps getting longer and longer.  I end each day wishing I'd gotten something done that I know will be waiting for me tomorrow.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been tired. I wake up and think about when I can get a nap during the day, and thinking about bedtime.  I've spoken to doctors about it periodically, had my thyroid checked, my iron checked (I have dipped in and out of Anemia over the years) and usually chalked it up to whatever was going on in my life at the time - college, commuting, pregnancy, babies and so on.  Over the last several months, I've been experiencing joint pain. It hasn't been debilitating, but kind of annoying.  I'm a reluctantly active person - I go to the gym, take classes, walk my dogs, run around with my kids.  I've chalked the joint pain up to my endless amount of time sitting in the car driving to school and kids' activities.  I've also noticed that my "pregnancy brain" never quite seemed to leave.  I've felt foggy and not as sharp as I used to be, again, I attributed this to my busy mommy-life and having too much on my plate.

All of these seemingly unrelated things have started to bother me more as of late and I've started seeking out help - massage for my joint pain, herbs and green smoothies for my energy level and I've even tried playing those silly iPhone games to improve my memory and focus.  My massage therapist has a daughter who is gluten-free and we often talk about food and recipes when I visit her.  She has mentioned Wheat Belly and Grain Brain several times and I ignored her recommendation to read them.  I'm not sure why - maybe partially because, again, as the mom to 4 lovely and demanding girls, reading falls to the bottom of my to-do list and also because I know that I'm highly suggestible to the latest diet/health craze.  I didn't want an excuse to be gluten-free if I didn't have to be.  I LOVE everything about bread and didn't want to learn about it's percieved evils.

Well, for some reason, I borrowed the audio version of Wheat Belly from my local library.  I started listening and found it fascinating.  I honestly sat in my car, in my garage to finish listening to a chapter.  In the back of my head I kept telling myself that I needed to be objective and not start telling the whole world that they should quit gluten. Heck - I couldn't do it, so I knew I couldn't tell anyone else what to do.  But I must admit - the information was seeping in to my train of thought.  I had diagnosed everyone in my family with Celiac (everyone other than me) based on his different descriptions.

My Diagnosis:

Last week, while seeing my doctor for an unrelated issue, she was doing a blood test and I asked her to run a Celiac panel - I'm not sure why I asked, I've googled the symptoms and I don't present with classic Celiac symptoms per se. Maybe I asked her because I was listening to the book and wanted to rule it out so I could stop listening and not feel guilty about my bread-loving lifestyle. So, needless to say, when I got the email, while on a family beach vacation, with my lab results, I was stunned.  The note at the top said "definitely positive."  I called my husband in to show him and had to laugh at the irony.

Now what?:

Facing a diagnosis of an auto-immune disease, I did what any self-respecting woman would do - I ran to my computer and hit up Pinterest.  I found comfort in how many pins there were under Celiac.  So, here I am, a cook, a baker, a mom, who has to figure this out and how to fit it into my already crazy daily life.  I have run through the gamut of emotions over the last week.  Sad, hopeful, frustrated, confused, angry you name it.  But here is the kicker.  I have been told to continue eating gluten rich foods until I go for my follow up test - an endoscopy in the the next few weeks.  So, each bite I take of bread, pizza, cereal, pancakes (maybe even a donut), I celebrate it, and mourn it a bit too.  

To wrap up an already too long story - my head is swimming and I thought by writing this down, it would help me make some sense of this huge life change I'm grappling with.  While I do have some perspective; I know that people face WAY bigger challenges each day, but in my small world, this feels pretty big.