Well I didn’t see that coming!
Let’s go back to the beginning. About 6 months ago I was driving my kids to playgroup and became crippled over with period pain! It was excruciating to the point that I had to pull over, stop the car and tears were streaming down my face.
‘What’s wrong mummy’ Harry said in such a sweet tone .
‘Nothing bubba mummy just has a tummy ache’ I reply, forcing a smile on my face.
‘ok mummy maybe you need a cup of tea!’….Ohhhhhhhh insert heart melting here!
I limped into the chemist, grabbed whatever pain killers I could get my hands on and called my Dad (a dr), it was finally time to do something about this.
My symptoms had been hanging around for a while, but they were getting progressively worse. As a Mum it’s so easy to put your own health on the back burner but this time I was ready to find out what was going on! I was convinced that I had endometriosis but I couldn’t escape the fact that there was a lot going on in my gut too!
It wasn’t long and Dad (lucky to be a Drs daughter) and my GP had me off to see the gyno! Yes possble endo but he also wanted to explore all aspects of the gut issues just to eliminate anything! Being a slightly hysterical person at times the first thing I was worried about was a cancer and so it was off to get a colonoscopy and gastroscopy.
It’s funny how you can start down a pathway thinking you know where it will lead you and you end up opening up a pandora’s box worth of things.
You see somewhere along the line, I had a blood test that showed elevated gluten levels. The Drs decided to retest it just before the scopes and then suddenly they wanted to biopsy for a range of dietary intolerances including celiac and lactose.
TBH, I kinda brushed it! I was totally focused on getting the endo stuff concluded I was like yeah maybe I am gluten intolerant but i’ll deal with that later.
Well what a mission the last 2 weeks has been.
Firstly prepping for a colonoscopy is quite honestly THE MOST disgusting thing known to man kind. Argh! Yuck! I have no words.
Then before I knew it I was there ready for them to check my insides out, one minute talking to my Dads mate who happened to be my anaesthetist and then I was out! Nek minute I’m sipping the best bloody hot cuppa I’ve had waiting for the dr to chat to me.
When he emerges I sense the slight anxiety in his face. ‘So we didn’t see any nasties in your bowel’… ‘yes!!!’ i think…’but…’WHY IS THERE ALWAYS A BUT?!
So there was a mass pushing on my gassy bowel and so i was off to get an abdominal ultrasound!
Thanks to the gods for getting me get a cancellation that day a lovely lady put me out of my misery and said it looked like adhesions pressing on the bowel! Phew!
Then it was back to the docs for follow ups! First cab off the rank the gyno! Yup endo! Yup adhesions! Nope we can’t do a laparoscopy because they may perforate the bowel! Yeeha!
Next it’s D-day with the gastro! Funny that because the morning of my follow up one three year old goes down with the gastro! Projectile vomiting through a shopping center and taking out my shoes and jeans!
So I called the Doc and I’m like we have to do this over the phone as my kids currently spewing in a garden bed!
No worries he says but you have coeliac!
WHAT!!! I mean firstly DO NOT GET ME WRONG…I am amazingly grateful that I do not have anything life threatening right now, but this is also big….super BIG!
This is more than cutting gluten down this is an all in NO gluten to be near you kinda situation!
So there you have it. Pandora’s box opened up a doosey! One that I am now on a mission to work out how to handle! There are so many ironies in this and quite honestly the idea of managing this and 3.5 year old twins is a tad overwhelming. BUT…that’s life and you cop it and do it!
So where to from here? Well I guess I need to find that out…but one things for sure…see ya regular bread! 😦
I will be posting more on my journey with celiac. I hope you can follow my journey. Thanks Nix
nickyainley 