The last 8 months has been quite a journey—a trip that I would have rather not taken. It started back in the spring- at least that’s when Charlton and I both first knew something was wrong. I gave my sister a “sip and see” shower on April 1st, and I didn’t hold my almost two month old nephew because I could feel cold-like symptoms beginning to creep in. Both my boys had colds earlier in the week, and I was convinced that I was getting it. I was also feeling tired, but I assumed it was from the party preparations and taking care of two sicks kids. One week, then two weeks went by, and it didn’t go away. After a month of flu-like symptoms, Charlton insisted that I go to our family doctor.
Our family doctor is a wonderful doctor and very nice guy. He listened very patiently while I listed all my random symptoms that were becoming more severe with time. The most serious were migraines (I’ve never had migraines before), all-over body aches, fatigue, and joint and muscle pain. We did blood work to test all kinds of things but they all came back normal. Except for how I was feeling, I was the picture of health. The problem was that by June, I felt like I was dying a slow death. Maybe that is dramatic but that’s how I felt. I woke up every day physically overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. By 9:00 am I had a debilitating headache and felt crushing fatigue. I was barely functional; I did not feel like myself. My head would hurt so badly that I was nauseous and couldn’t think clearly. I was in so much pain that it hurt to be awake—much less to take care of the boys.
Every day my goal was for us to survive—not a lofty goal. I pushed through the pain while the boys were awake, but during naptime I would collapse and pray that James would take a really long nap and that I would feel better by then. I didn’t make many phone calls or emails, or spend a lot of time on Face book or writing on my blog (obviously), or reading, because I simply didn’t have any energy to spare. My symptoms did vary from day to day—but they varied from “not-as-bad” to “worse”. I couldn’t figure out what was making me feel bad because the pain was consistent and overwhelming. My family doctor didn’t have any answers for me except that maybe if I could rest, I would start feeling better. The problem was that I was resting every chance I got—not that it was much with two kids—but every week it was becoming more of a priority because we all needed me to feel better.
At Charlton’s urging, I went to an informational luncheon that a local wellness center was having. The wellness doctor (she is an MD) described many of the things that I had been feeling, and for the first time in three months, I felt some hope. I signed up for the program. She put me on a regiment of vitamins and a cleanse diet to rid my body of all the pollants, toxins, etc., that could be contributing to my symptoms. I felt better the first week. The cleanse diet was supposed to be for 28 days, but we extended it for another month because I was still having mild symptoms occasionally. The goal was to get rid of them completely. At the end of the cleanse, they recommend that you add the foods you’ve cut out during the diet back in one at a time. The first thing I ate was two slices of bread. After not having anything but meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and beans for two months, it was heavenly….for about an hour until my head and body were in so much pain I had to lay down for the rest of the day. The symptoms were back and I knew that we had found a piece to my health puzzle. I waited for the wheat to get out of my system, and then tried oats. Again pain hit me so hard, I had to wait two days to call my doctor to talk through my findings. But after my head cleared, I called the nutritionist at the wellness center and read her my daily food journal. After I told her about my reactions to the bread and the oats, she immediately knew that I had an allergy to gluten, and she guessed that by the quickness and severity of my reaction that it was severe. I was relieved and liberated to finally have an answer. The solution? To completely eliminate gluten from my diet.
So, it was in September that I found out that gluten was my mortal enemy, and since then I have done everything I can to keep it out of my system. As overwhelming as that task is, I’m happy to do it to ensure never feeling like that again. Gluten was stealing my life away from me. The fact that I couldn’t enjoy my family and take care of them like I needed and wanted to, was killing me more than the physical pain.
In October, I did a detailed blood test to test specifically for food allergies, and not surprisingly, the test showed that I have severe allergies to wheat, gluten and rye. Gluten is a protein found in wheat and rye. It confirmed on paper what I already knew to be true from the food challenges I conducted myself.
This is why I’ve been absent for most of this year, but now I’m getting back to normal. Only I feel like it’s a new and improved normal because when I look back, I haven’t felt great for a long time. So, now my men and I are on a new journey and I hope that you’ll join us to see where it leads.
(P.S. When I asked Charlton to read this and if it was too dramatic, he said that it was more dramatic living through it. Things are definitely back to normal.)
