Kaycee's Blog

10 July, 2006

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
Well it has been a few days, I am still on holiday, but it is nearly over, two more sleeps then I will be winging my way back home.

Holiday has been great, I have tried to make it relaxing, but dad keeps on thinking that I should be doing things, and not just reading or doing a crossword. But I am quite happy doing those things.

I went dining at my sisters house on the Sunday. They were more worried about feeding me than I was about eating at their house. They kept joking about putting gluten in this and that. Love them heaps. But Liz has tried to be gluten free in the past, so I realized it would not be a big problem. They are very conscious of their diets and additives etc. So that was successful.

We have been out for lunch a couple of times and I can say food wise they have been successful. The first meal, yesterday was where I ordered from the menu. The second one, today was where there was an array of food, smorgasbords style, and I could pick what I wanted of the serving dishes Emotionally the first meal was easier to handle. But the second meal was disastrous. I felt quite devastated, that there was all this food, and hardly any that would agree with me. So I went safe with plain spuds, pumpkin, meat and salads. I did not even look at the desserts, and mum said, you can have some fruit salad. But who wants plain old fruit salad without the extras. I would rather go without, which was what I did. It was hard, so hard. So I sat and watched all the old dears tuck in and have a right royal time. I was close to tears, and if someone said something to upset me, I would’ve ran out of there pronto. But I succeeded. Man it is worse than dieting.

I have found that down here where I am holiday, coeliac seems to be in epidemic proportions. I have a few times explained, (well tried to) that I cannot eat flour, and immediately, they ask , have you got coeliac, and that they relate to me, that someone in their family, or a friend has it. Yet back home, where I come from, the same conversation would go with them asking me what is that? And then I would have to explain what it is. So weird, it is like living on a different planet here.

We had a speaker at the luncheon we went to and he was a electrician from Calgary in Canada, who had found his way to little town New Zealand. He related that for all the years that he had lived in Calgary, he has never been snowed in, and just a few weeks back, he gets snowed in in the south island of New Zealand. Canada is colder, but in little old NZ he got snowed in for a few days and couldn’t move. That is quite bizarre weather we have had here, and all the locals have been surprised by the weather.

He was very entertaining and had the whole room in fits of laughter as he related his experience of becoming a kiwi in New Zealand. One thing that probably differentiates our cultures, was when he was going on about the kiwi attitude of if it is broken, we better fix it, whereas in Canada, he says he never had to repair anything, as when things broke, they were replaced. We are slowly moving from that way of thinking, as things don’t last as long as they used to. And I like new things when they break, but sometimes I wait a helluva long time for things to break. Like my cell phone it has been in my possession for at least 5 years. Maybe I should encourage it to jump or something.

I am worried about my mum and that she might have this coeliac too. I didn’t actually talk to mum about it, but talked to my dad. He said he had never thought that her stomach problems could be coeliac related, but agrees there could be a possibility, but he feels that mum might not be able to handle it if that was diagnosed. She is well into her seventies, like dad. She is quite capable of cooking cleaning and all those other things that we do, even reading labels, but she is a bit different, I can’t quite put my finger on it, fussy would be one word. Set in her ways another. Dad feels she could give up bread, but probably not the other things, need I say cake and biscuits. I am not saying her symptoms are major, probably a lot like mine were, more of a nuisance, but I am feeling a lot better physically and mentally for being on the diet. It is a bit of a quandary. Is it fair to just let her live without knowing, without trying to have her tested? I know I cannot do any more pushing and prodding, but it is my mum we are talking about, and I do worry about her health. I know I more or less get the same reactions from my brothers and sisters. None of the 6 of them have been tested. I feel they just do not take this threat to their health realistically, and that in not being serious, I feel they are belittling me, by their attitude. I feel like they are not giving the disease the respect that it deserves. But then they are more capable of living their lives, and I keep telling myself if they are willing to take to risk, so be it. At least I know I am doing the right thing for me. And I am confident that I will now live longer in the long run now. Lets hope it will be a good long life, as a lot of my fathers uncles and aunts lived into their nineties, and same with mum’s family. So we have got longevity in there, but a rogue gene has reared it’s head in my life. But it is a wonderful gene, which has given me a lot of food sense, and care about what I now put in my body.

Cathy