And the diagnosis is...

After four months of constant bloating and belching I've been officially diagnosed with Celiac disease.  This nasty sounding ailment means gluten does damage to my colon which is causing the bloating and also has other long range effects if not treated. 

 

The only treatment is removing wheat, barley and rye from my diet.  Yeah.  That sounds easy until you walk into your pantry.  There were only four items in mine that I could still eat.  Four!  The refrigerator wasn't much better.  There are tons of Celiac websites to help those afflicted with this malady.  Tons of recipes.  Links to sites, restaurants, and manufacturers so that I can know what items have gluten in it.  All great stuff and I'm extremely grateful. 

 

But while my family and friends are very nice to help me look on the bright side, and it is very nice of them, don't let anyone fool you.  This is not easy, not even close, it is heck!  First the mental aspect of living with the fact there are favorite foods of yours that you will never eat again - ever - is a real head trip!  Once you get past that you, or your spouse (sorry dear), has to get down to figuring out the meal plan.  Cooking gluten free can be done but it boils down to cooking from scratch to avoid items with gluten or buying expensive grocery items to help the process along.  Ugh.  Luckily I'm a meat eater because most, but not all, meat is ready to eat.  That helps for when I go to restaurants.  That alone can be tough.  I've been to places where 99% of the menu is off limits.  Sure glad they had mashed potatoes...  No fried foods, no breads, no this, no that.  It is maddening.  You would not believe the many different types of food which I cannot digest.  Good news is there is gluten free beer...

 

This isn't on woe is me post.  It is a fact of life and I'll deal with it.  It just isn't easy at age 44 to completely retool your diet while saying goodbye to some of your favorite foods.  I will get through this though.  First and foremost I'm glad it wasn't more serious.  The docs had a whole list of things I could have been suffering from and some were much worse than this.  Thank you God.  It is also good to know what I'm dealing with.  After months of having no idea I can at least attack this head on now.  Will I cheat?  I'm sure at some point I will but thanks to the long term possible ramifications those times will be kept to a minimum.  But it will happen... 

 

I must also think of my family.  I want to be around a long time to harass them and my grand babies of the future.  My daughter has been suffering stomach ailments for years but has put off definitive testing for fear of what might be found.  This may be exactly what she is dealing with and I have stepped up the fight to get her to testing.  She is starting college and doesn't want to deal with something like this but as an adult she needs answers and can then make informed decisions on how she wants to proceed. 

 

Bottom line is I now know what I need to do.  I'll do that and get the healing process started.  And things will get better, physically and mentally. 

 

This never happened before...

Wednesday was a day I'll never forget.  Late in the afternoon I was speaking to a coworker.  Just a conversation we have many times every day.  Just before we finished my heart fluttered, flip-flopped, beat weird, whatever you want to call it.  All of sudden I could see but couldn't focus.  I started to see stars as I felt light headed on my way to passing out.  Then it passed.  In all it lasted less than 30 seconds. 

My coworker noticed what happened immediately and was concerned.  I was able to get past what happened and finished out the day, concerned but pressing forward.  I had quite a bit on my plate to include a trip that was to start yesterday.  I couldn't worry too much about this.  It was prevalent in my thinking the rest of the day and on the way home.  Just before I got into town I felt sick and light headed.  Wasn't even sure I'd make it into town.  Nothing going on with my heart but I felt bad.  I knew immediately I had to go to the emergency room.  I called the wife, and stopped out the house but we were on the way to the hospital within minutes. 

The emergency room got me right in to a room and started a flurry of tests.  I can't name them all but they were pretty extensive.  Nothing obvious from the results but with me having two episodes they decided to keep me overnight.  I feel better as the evening goes on.  I think having the good test results helped as much as just getting over whatever happened.  The night went well and more tests were completed the next morning and again the results all came back well.  The bottom line is the heart palpitations I had, which are common to everyone, lasted longer than is common.  This led to not enough oxygen getting to my brain causing the light headedness.  What caused my heart to do that?  That they couldn't answer.  So they sent me home and tell me to rest.  If it happens again then they'll look at it differently with more tests on a different level. 

So on the surface it seems pretty benign and it probably is.  So why do I write about it?  Not sure but I felt compelled to.  For me is was a pretty major occurance.  When that first episode occurred I lost control.  I couldn't move and was left to wonder what was happening.  Was this a heart attack?  Would my last moments be this...me at work?  Sounds overly dramatic I know but in those seconds I really had no idea what was happening.  I want to use words like concerned or worried when I speak about how I felt immediately afterwards but they aren't true.  I was scared.  That is a word I don't use lightly.  To that point I don't know what writing about the episode does for me but here I am.  I know that over time I will become less concerned but I definitely won't forget what happened.  Thankfully life goes on.