Happy two weeks, tummy. Feeling any better? No? You hate me even more? Oh is it just today? Oh, okay... You just wanted to remind me how awful I felt before two weeks ago? Thanks. Thank you, stomach. I appreciate it.
Soo.... Today has been unproductive. I was very glazed-over at work. My sister popped into my office close to quitting time, so we wandered down to the library together so she could look for a book, and I flipped through some gluten-free cookbooks.
[I have a dozen or two normal cookbooks at home, and every time I cook, I find something on allrecipes.com or on Pinterest, and I never crack a book unless I remember something my mom used to make. So I am resistant to buying cookbooks anymore.]
So I'm reading some of the gluten-free cookbooks, and they tend to profess a certain type of flour, and stick to it. The most frustrating thing about Pinterest is that every blogger has a different "I swear by this flour" flour. So it's hard hopping from blog to blog. But if I buy one complete gluten-free cookbook that sticks to their guns and covers different meals, and not all the recipes are "replacement" foods, but some are "creatively un-glutened" (that's my term. I just made it up) then I think I would really use it. I only want one, or I'll never use any of them. So that's my new mission. To hunt down one, single, really good, complete, gluten-free cookbook. I need to find it myself, it needs to have lots of pictures, I need to like the writing style, and it needs to cover lots of areas of food.
Anyways, my sister and I then walked over to the fried chicken outlet downtown, and got fries because I know they take a potato, put it through a slicer tool, and then fry it. They do fry the fries in the same oil as the breaded chicken, which makes it contaminated, but dammitall, I just wanted fries! So I had fries. Well, my sister and I split fries. And she didn't get gravy on the side because I'm a mean little sister.
Then we all went home. Within ten minutes of getting home, the main floor of our house had me, my husband, my best friend, my sister, the guy who lives in our basement, and his friend who is staying with him for the weekend. It was a very suddenly full living room. But I like it like that.
Anyways, after my sister left to hang out with her boyfriend, and the two guys went downstairs to nerd out, and my friend went to buy groceries, hubby and I had dinner. He combined barbeque sauce, ground beef, leftover rice and cheese into a yummy soupy skillet dish. It was good, filling and simple.
Just before dinner, I started feeling wiped and weak, but when I got up from the table to do the dishes, I collapsed. Hubs helped me to the couch, where I groaned and felt nauseous, and moaned and whined until he left to celebrate the roommate's birthday (which is actually tomorrow). My friend got back soon though (I mentioned she's staying here for a couple days, right?), and she sat with me until I dragged my butt up to go pee and then brought my laptop back to the couch so I could write all of this.
So basically, I feel like I "got glutened". Long-time gluten-free celiacs describe the way they feel after accidentally consuming gluten as that. The symptoms (whatever their symptoms may be) hit. For me, I notice fatigue and a weakness, and then the "brain fog" that a lot of other people describe, and then nausea, gas, and a general "feeling awful". It seems to be a really common reaction, amongst celiacs who frequent the forums I've been reading. My first reaction is "What did I eat with gluten in it?" and I bet you're blaming the fries (I was too), but this early on in the healing progress, it's perfectly normal for the symptoms to hit for no reason. There's still gluten in my system, and my intestine is still damaged. So this early on, I can't blame it on anything, really. I can't call fries from a breaded chicken place "too much". I'm not going to eat there everyday, but I'm not going to blame them and call them witches. So I guess what I'm saying is that I do need to be 100% anal and obsessive and careful, but I don't need to be pointing fingers when it hits.
[If you're wondering about "brain fog", it's a common symptom described by gluten sensitive, and more commonly, celiacs. I basically feel like a fog descended on my brain. I have a hard time focusing, my focus gets lost easily (earlier, my husband was telling me a story, and I halfway through I picked up my phone and started facebooking. I completely forgot he was even talking until he said something. I felt awful). I feel very distracted and lost. Driving is scary, because I accidentally hit the wrong pedal, I forget which road I was going to take home, and I often just don't use my signal lights. Doing anything is hard because I'm fighting a dense fog around my thinking capabilities, and conversation is difficult. It's like when you're overtired to the point of having to think about focusing, and not being sure what you were doing a few seconds ago. For months, I blamed feeling like this on just being tired, even though I was sleeping 8-10 hours a weekday, and sometimes 12 or more on weekends.]
So... It's been two weeks. I haven't been perfectly gluten-free that whole time, but I have survived to my two week "anniversary". Another 50 weeks, and I'll have done a year... Woohoo....
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