In 2002, or maybe it was the fall of 2001, all I know is I was to be enjoying my Senior year of college, my stomach started to take a toll on me. I was in constant pain, and constant discomfort every day. The pains were always there, and I would try to comfort my stomach with soup, toast, saltines, all of which I now know I can't eat.
After a few months of going through these pains day after day I went to my doctor. Understand, my doctor was a dear family friend, my godfather to be exact, who had changed my diaper and knew all about every childhood allergy, illness, injury I had ever had and heard all about how worried my parents were that I never had a 'good' day. So I trusted him, and he wanted only the best for me. When he walked into his exam room I was curled up sleeping on the table (when you're in as much pain on a regular basis as I was and a Senior in college, sleep wasn't a common occurrence). In his Irish accent he says "Megan, dear, wake up", and once I stirred myself out of my sleep we got to chatting about what was going on. Being completely in tune with my life from talking with my Dad often and now talking with me, he said he really believed it was stress, that I had too much on my plate, and asked me what I could get rid of.
My gut reaction to letting something in my life go was NO. I needed to being doing everything I could so I could get a good job, have a good future, and continue to be the overachieving perfectionist I was. But then I thought for a while, and realized I was stressed, and wasn't enjoying life at all, and I realized something had to give.
I thought a minute, I am a Senior at Carnegie Mellon, at the same time am getting my Masters, neither of which I could quit. I was in a sorority that I was committed to and at the time was the only thing that was making me happy, though I wasn't making the sisters around me very happy (to this day I apologize for how unhappy I was). I taught aerobics 4 nights a week, which to give up would be stupid, why not get paid to workout if I was going to workout anyway. And, I had an internship that was 40 minutes away from campus 2 days a week, that didn't bring me any joy anymore. Once I rattled off everything I had going, or not going in my life, I came to the conclusion, I'm going to quit my internship.
That next Tuesday I walked in and apologized to my boss, explaining that I had too much on my plate and while I had learned a lot I needed to focus on graduation, and that hopefully one less thing would help me feel better. He was great, said he totally understood, and he wished me well. Unfortunately, as you can probably predict the one less thing on my plate didn't do me or my stomach much good. I gave it a few weeks to see if time to heal was needed and back to the doctor's I went.
This time we knew we had to start searching for what was wrong to at least rule out things. So we put me on the purple pill, set me up with a GI specialist and started running tests. For two years I was poked, prodded, had three endoscopes, multiple blood tests and switched doctors before we made any progress.
After ruling out that I didn't have ulcers and it wasn't my gallbladder we went in for my third endoscopy to yet again find nothing. Wanting desperately to find out what I had my mom says to the GI doctor, I just saw on the Today Show something about Celiac Disease, could that be it? The doctor didn't believe it was the cause of all my issues but was just as determined to figure out what was wrong with me. I really think he just didn't enjoy the singing I did in the recovery room after anesthesia.
My mom and I headed over to Quest Diagnostics to get my blood taken. I can tell you, at this time I thought I really hope this isn't what I have, I love pasta, bread, pizza, anything Italian and I don't eat any meat but chicken.
About a week later, I am sitting at my desk on my project site, at this time I was a consultant, and the phone rings. It was the GI doctor's office telling me I have Sprue. I was like what? I wasn't tested for that, I was tested for something called Celiac, an intolerance to gluten, what the heck is sprue. The nurse said something like sorry, "it's called Celiac Sprue, you tested positive, the doctor needs you to come back in and get some tests run so we can determine the severity of damage to your intestines". Damage, don't tell at 24 year old she could have damaged intestines.
As I said, I was a consultant on client site, which happened to be in Harrisburg, PA, when I found out my life was going to completely change, I just didn't know how. So I called my mom, told her the news, told my manager I would need to be out of the office for tests the following week, and quickly started to research Celiac on the Internet.
Here is where I start my tale of how Gluten went from being an enemy to an old friend I haven't seen in a while.
After my diagnosis, and realization that traveling to Harrisburg, PA, which had just gotten a Starbucks in January of 2004, was probably not the place to find gluten free food, I asked my company to let me go from my project to take care of my health. They kindly let me leave and allowed me to work on projects that didn't require travel for the next year. When it looked like travel was going to have to become a part of my life again I got scared, I need a kitchen, I can't eat out easily, I am still figuring out what this whole thing means and so I parted ways with consulting.
At this time Gluten was so the enemy in my life. It was keeping me from being what I wanted to be, I felt like it was holding me back. But what I found in the next six months of my life after consulting, where I focused on myself, what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be, where I was happiest, wouldn't have happened if Gluten hadn't forced me to take care of myself.
In the past six years since my diagnosis I have a career I love, not one that just suited what a piece of paper said I should do, and a new found appreciation for food, Gluten Free food to be exact. I know how much I hated Gluten every day for so long, and was jealous of all the people who would eat bread at the dinner table before our meal came. I know other Celiac friends I do or don't know have have felt or are feeling this way. Now, it is finally time to share with others my recipes, tips and tricks to eating out and ways to not offend friends when they tried to make dinner for you, so that Gluten can be just as much a long distance friend you'll never forgot you once loved to hang out with, to you as it is to me.
I hope you'll keep coming back and that my past years of living Gluten Free will help you, a friend or family member through their journey of life without Gluten.
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