Gluten free girl

[Guest guest]

Ladies, some of you need to try gluten free living and see if your digestive symptoms and other symptoms go away. You don't need to be tested, unless you want verifiable proof. If you just want to feel better, try eating gluten free for a few weeks and see if it helps! This site is awesome....tons of GREAT recipes for eating gluten free!www.glutenfreegirl.comIn the early spring of 2005, I was terribly ill. My body required 18

hours of sleep a day, my stomach ached all the time, and I could barely

move without hurting. Doctors ordered one medical test after another,

and none of them yielded answers. (The low point is when I endured a

colonoscopy and endoscopy on the same day. Bleh.) All I could eat was soft bread, chicken noodle soup, and crackers. No one understood why I was so ill.It

had been a hard few years. In the winter of 2001, I suffered pneumonia

for the sixth time in my life. In the beginning of 2003, I required

emergency abdominal surgery for a fibroid tumor that had grown to the

size of a grapefruit. In the winter of 2003, I was t-boned by another

car, in a terrible accident that changed my life. My body reminded me,

every day, how lucky I was to be alive, with pain from the injuries

that didn't go away. Just as I was starting to recover, I fell into

that crisis of 2005.It started to feel like I would never be well.After

all those tests, and no answers, I started to despair. A friend of mine

who had been a nurse all her life confided in me later, "I thought you

were terminal." So did I.Then, a friend of mine called me from

Maine, to say she had just heard a story on celiac disease, the most

under-diagnosed disease in the States. It sounded like me. I googled

it, and found myself in the symptoms. Two years before, in an effort to

find my energy, I had given up wheat for six weeks. I felt fantastic,

but I slipped back into it. Remembering, my body jolted. What else

could it be?And why had I never heard of this before?My

gastroenterologist refused to test me for it, even though it only

required a blood test before I could stop eating gluten. He refused.

Actually, he had his nurse call me. "Celiac is really rare," she said

on the message. "That's a long shot. We'll talk about it during your

follow-up in two weeks."Heck with that. I knew my body,

exhausted as it was. At this point, I was down to eating a jar of baby

food a day. I wanted to start living again.I went to a naturopath, who did the blood test. I stopped eating gluten.I have never gone back since.At

the end of the first day without gluten, I felt some energy. My stomach

didn't hurt when I ate. On the second day, I didn't need a five-hour

nap. On the third day, my brain fog cleared, as though my contacts had

been cleaned for the first time.When I received the official

diagnosis — you have celiac — I clapped my hands and said yes! The

naturopath was a little surprised to see my celebration.The

gastroenterologist was even more surprised, the next week, when I

showed up for my follow-up appointment in great health, blood test

results in hand. He confirmed it — I have celiac. And he left the room,

embarrassed.I'm not the only one who had to fight her way

through the medical system to receive the correct diagnosis and become

healthy for the first time in my life. Americans have to wait an

average of 11 years, and many doctors, before finally being diagnosed.

It is estimated that 1 out of 100 Americans has celiac disease. Only 3%

of us have been diagnosed.We have to change this.After I was diagnosed, I felt reborn. I became a self I had never been before.And

I started writing about it. About amaranth and quinoa, ume plum

vinegar, how to braise a lamb shank, and the life of food I began to

live. I wrote to teach, to lead other people to the awakeness I was

feeling. I love the fascination of the human body; I dissected cadavers

in high school. (It was for an advanced biology class.) And yet, I had

never heard of the condition that had been commanding me all my life.I did the only thing I knew how to do. I began to write.And thus, this website was born.Gluten-free woman just doesn't have the same ring.When

I had been so sick, my friend Dorothy came over, many times, to bring

me food and commiserate. When I just didn't improve — and grew worse

and worse each week — she said, in exasperation one day: "We're just

going to have to call you the sick girl."When I was finally

diagnosed, and told Dorothy about it, she said, ironically, "Oh, we're

going to have to call you the Gluten-Free Girl!"I never thought

people would stop me at the farmers' market and exclaim, "Oh, you're

the Gluten-Free Girl, aren't you?" I certainly never thought I would

see that phrase on the cover of my first book.I just liked the alliteration.Focusing on the food.When

I first started eating hot food again, I was moved to tears by the

physical sensation of it sliding down my throat. It had been so long

since I had been able to take pleasure in food.I have always

loved food. Every story I share with my dear friend Sharon seems to

involve food, of some kind (and falling down). Even though I ate a

requisite number of processed foods when growing up (I was born in the

late 60s remember, so I was raised on Wonder Bread), my mother was a

good cook. She could bake like no one's business. And over the years, I

started going to farmers' markets, cooking with good olive oil, and

eating food from recipes that originated from outside the boundaries of

the United States.But it wasn't until I was diagnosed with celiac that I truly started focusing on the food.Food

is the path to healing in celiac. There is no pill we can take, no

surgery we can endure, and in fact, no cure other than living on an

entirely gluten-free diet. Some find that distressing. I find it a

blessing.In order to be well, I have to eat well. I have to feed myself. I have to live in food.Yes.I

started taking photographs of my foods as soon as I was diagnosed.

Having been so weak and in pain, I had not been able to write. I needed

that creative outlet. But more than that, being able to eat again —

after at least six weeks of eating bananas and baby food — made me see.

Food is so beautiful. The vivid oranges of baby carrots, the fuzzy hair

on a soft peach, the little white rings on red quinoa in a skillet, the

crumbling flakes of dark chocolate on a cutting board — everything

attracted my eye.I began taking photographs of my meals. I haven't stopped since.From May 2005 to July of 2006, I took photographs with my little Nikon Coolpix.In July of 2006, I switched to a Fujifilm Finepix.And

in the winter of 2007, I bought the body of a Nikon D-100, and a 2.8

35-70mm lens. It has a wonderful macro capability, which is why I

bought it from a professional photographer in Seattle, who needed to

move to a different system. That lens has been around the world, taking

photographs of people living with AIDS in Kenya, and women singing in

Morocco.This camera has good karma.And then there was the Chef. When

I was diagnosed, I had a visceral understanding that I was now a self I

had never been before. And I needed some time to myself. I decided to

take a year off from dating at all.Four days to the year, I met the Chef.I

knew, at once. This is the love of my life. But I held off for six

weeks from writing about him on this site. I had to be sure. I knew

that once I began writing about him here, everything would change.Oh boy has this site changed.From

the first post I wrote about him (Meet the Chef), until the post about

our honeymoon (la luna di miele), there has not been a single piece I

have written here without his influence infused into the words. He

lends tender-heartedness, a ribald sense of humor, real working-man's

hands, slow-braised flavors, and a wonderful practicality to everything

here.The name of this site is still Gluten-Free Girl, but this is our website now.