And a whole pizza. And a soft pretzel with cheese (easy on the large clumps of salt). And moist pumpkin bread. And my grandmother’s gooey butter cake. And bud light, and I don’t even like bud light.
Why do I want all these things right now? Why do I feel like I could scratch someone’s eyes out if I could only get to them?
I’ll tell you in just a second after I warn you that this post contains things that little girls made of spice do not talk about. But since I am no longer a girl in a frilly dress pretending she doesn’t like to get dirty to impress her friends…the shits gonna hit the fan.
Well, two days ago I found out I have celiac disease. For those of you unfamiliar with the term…it basically means an allergic reaction and intolerance to gluten. gluten=no bueno. I don’t know the Spanish word for Armageddon wreaking havoc on the body, but I’m sure you get the picture.
I always knew I had a sensitivity to wheat…and dairy. But I just always thought that they were the little annoying things that I just had to deal with in life. You know, the little interruptions all of us have. Like road rage, or eating those fluorescent kitchen sponges because you like the taste of them or collecting cat toys because you can’t stop.
I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome in my early twenties, endometriosis a couple years after that and no matter what I did, I’d still spend my days either shitting out food in liquid form, or baring down and praying to the poop Gods to give me a break for once.
When I was little it was mostly diarrhea all the time. I thought it was normal. But then again, I didn’t have the habit of going around talking about the consistency of my poop. Unless it was, on rare occasion, solid and green and I would run into my sisters room and exclaim in jovial and curious song that “my green is poop!” I tend to have a touch of dyslexia when I’m excited.
And of course, being raised by my father and sharing my childhood with two younger sisters and 3 female cousins who I spent most of my days with, fart jokes became a norm at family functions.
But actually talking about “being regular” and what regular even meant…no way. Soon enough, having a stomach ache every day or feeling those all familiar intestinal cramps everyday were just my reminder that “hey beautiful, you’re still breathing!” Gee, thanks body. Good lookin’ out.
And then when the endometriosis got really bad, suddenly everything that seemed to flow like hot lava out of my ass, hardened into painful piles of shit that camped out in my intestines, which I found no release from.
Didn’t matter the medications I was put on, nothing ever changed. That’s because the food that I thought was nourishing my body, was really only slowly poisoning me and getting me highly addicted. Like a crack fiend, sniffing out his next hit, I’d get a craving for wheat and bam! Glorious, doughy heaven for about 10 minutes and then sicker than hell for a few days after. How did I never tie that together? I just used to think I had horrible luck and got food poisoning all the damn time.
Debilitating Depression that turned into fits of anxiety, bouts of insomnia which turned into me getting addicted to sleeping pills for 2 years, stomach pains that I only found relief from by popping pain killers for about 6 months, then popping pain killers and anxiety medicine for another year to numb the emotional upheaval and downward spiral I felt. Oh yeah, I was the picture of glimmering health.
So what’s going on now…
Day 1: I felt airy, free and like breath had been breathed back into my lungs.
Day 2: no longer airy, a bubbly gut and a head that’s thinking, “something missing. Must find what” Yes, like Cookie Monster.
Day 3 of zero gluten in my system: I might die. My boyfriend woke me from my sleep early this morning because the entire bed was soaked in sweat. I spent the day holed up at fortune teller bar with a gluten free cider beer trying to write away the cravings and the imminent death my body seemed to be barreling towards. I instructed the bartender that if I order anything that is not the squash and cauliflower soup or meat plate, to berate me in front of everyone and send me back to my writing hole. I thought if I stayed out of the house, which is teeming with gluten, like the apple cinnamon sausage I made Steve this morning, I would be ok.
I am proud to say I didn’t cave. However, I think at one point I may have started scratching my arm, hoping that pizza rolls would appear. After I walked home from my hideout, I passed the fuck out. (Not because of the alcohol, I only had one) sheer exhaustion took a hold of me and I could barely crawl into bed before my body just gave out. But sleep well I did not. Oh no, I was half awake, half asleep and dreaming of pushing a shopping cart down the aisles of a gluten ONLY grocery store. So then I woke up and started writing this post because OH MY HOLY CHEESE DANISHES this is awful and it has to be told.
My nutritionist says it’s all normal. In a week or so, apparently my body will have kicked the wheat habit and I’ll never look back. My eyes are shifting cautiously from left to right as I type this…paranoia is setting in.
Keep me in your thoughts brothers and sisters.
I TOOK HER ADVICE 