Day 234: Celiac & The City

Wednesday, May 7
10:50 p.m.

I never really know how these entries are going to go - they sometimes, and often, take the form of listing the daily rituals of my life - from waking to preparing for sleep.  My state of mind is often all over the place like a child with ADD running on a playground from the tire swing to the sliding board to the seesaw to the monkey bars and so on.

Sometimes, like today, my entrie defaults to the pressing issue of the moment.  And right now that’s my stomach, or, more specificially, my intestines.

As I have stated in my past couple of entries, I am dealing with my symptoms from Celiac disease.  I have a rash again, this time on my torso, up on my shoulder leading to my neck and down to the top of my trapezius.  I have been especially bloated.  And I have been tired, irritable and anxious.  It’s not fun.  I have been keeping track of what I’m eating, but I’ve still made a couple of mistakes.

I went to work with an awful stomach ache.  I felt like I was going to get sick a few times.  I drank some tea and managed to cut through a pile of work on my desk.

I left work around 5:00 p.m. to meet my colleagues from the San Francisco trip a couple of weeks ago, to recap on the trip and make some preliminary plans for a repeat trip to New York City.  It looks as though the end of August or mid-to-late September would be our potential target dates.  This would get us in front of key media before the holiday season kicks in, especially perfect for freelance writers looking to pitch stories later in the year.

We met at Parallel 45 wine bar, a quaint wine bar in Tualatin.  After our meeting, my colleague and friend and I stuck around and caught up on life.  We had a heart-to-heart talk about love lost, finding the right one and being happy and living in the moment.  She is a sagey friend - I learn a lot from her and appreciate her candid honesty and caring spirit.  Two-thirds through the conversation, after I had consumed a glass of bubbly, some charcuterie and cheese, a salmon caesar salad without crutons, a glass of Pinot, and then some gluten-free chocolate-hazelnut cake, I got sick.  The chef said the cake was gluten-free, made with just cholocate and ground hazelnuts, but now I’m not so sure.  Not that the food wasn’t delicious - it was!!  The problem with ordering gluten-free is that no kitchen is 100% safe from cross contamination unless the kitchen is 100% gluten-free.  So, it’s not the restaurant’s fault I reacted.  It’s just part of living with this disease.

My arms were itching from my rash.  I felt like crap.  We left shortly after.

When I drove home I wondered what my mother was up to in Austria.  I realized it was morning in Poppendorf.  I imagined my mom was up and enjoying the company of her brother, enjoying the experience of being in Europe, of being in the village where her paternal ancestors were from.  Part of me was a little jealous.  I’d love to be travelling and discovering new places, new people, new truths.  Moreso, I’d love to be travelling with her.  I reminisced on our last international trip together - when we travelled throughout Italy for about three weeks in July 2000.

When I got home, I was sick again.  I need more discipline.  And I need to find a good naturopathic doctor to help me.  I often feel very alone with my disease, that is, until I call home and talk to my dad.

I actually called him earlier, when I left work to check in on him.  It’s not like my mom is gone and then my dad is a total wreck.  He’s very independent.  I told him about my symptoms returning, about my rash.  And we just vented and related to one another.  He’s the only person in my life who really knows how crappy this is.

As I wrote that last line I had to get up and run to the restroom.  Sick again.  I got back, wrote the next line, and then rushed back to the restroom.  My head is throbbing, my stomach is very queasy.  I feel awful.  I cataloged back to the earlier part of the evening when I was so hungry when we first got to Parallel 45 - and we ordered the charcuterie and cheese plates.  I dusted off some of the crusty bread crumbs from a slice of cheese and from a piece of prosciutto.  I ate it anyway.  That was stupid.  Clearly I wasn’t thinking.  And now I am sick as if I had influenza.

This is a wake-up call.  I need to really re-think eating out and how I’m living my life.