[ sustenance ]

I was laying out by the pool today, chatting about hamburgers, when suddenly, I asked myself some obvious but senseless questions.   Why do we call it a hamburger?  It isn’t made from ham [pork], rather from beef.  Why do we call it a hot dog when it isn’t made from dog at all [thank goodness!].  Though, I’m sure if I look it up in Wikipedia, I’ll find the technical answers, it just made me ponder for a moment.

 Ok, so that was just an introduction to the week I’ve had.  There’s good news and bad news.  The good news:  The job I was SO praying for, interviewed with, and discovered they weren’t hiring until fall…..emailed me monday saying someone in the design department resigned the same day i interviewed, therefore opening up a slot.  They want to schedule a trial week for me to come in and work!  Yay!   The other good news is that I finished painting daniel’s kitchen [it used to be all pink--poor guy], and designing some other rooms in his house.  You can take a look at the [almost] finished product here: http://photos.yahoo.com/lauren.watts and click on the proper folder.  It looks GREAT, if I do say so myself!  That picture on the wall is actually a blown-up image of his favorite album cover, photoshopped, and hand crafted framing for his wall. 

Now for the bad news.  For those not aware, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease about 2 or 3 months ago.   In that time, I have cut out all the gluten in my diet, restricting myself to the few things that are left thereafter [and, believe me, there aren't many].  Unfortunately, it has been really tough, really depressing, really discouraging, and really exhausting.  I’ve had to give up all my favorite foods, give up eating with my friends, and mostly giving up eating out [you guys probably know the story--if not, i encourage you to read my blog about it on myspace or facebook].  Worst of all is that people give you a hard time about it, and are anything but helpful.  On the day I was diagnosed, I asked the pharmacy if my daily thyroid meds were gluten-free and they assured me they were.  It took me until last week to find out that all this time one of the main ingredients in it is derived from wheat.  You know those 1-800 numbers you get off the back of food and products?  They aren’t helpful, they’re rude, and they don’t even know what’s in their own products.   I even had one lady say, “Well, if you have a disease, you just shouldn’t buy our product.”  instead of trying to find out the ingredients for me.  It’s usually no different at restaurants.  Even if they DO claim their food is gluten free [if they are even educated as to the extent of products that contain gluten or even know what gluten IS], you never know if they’re cooking your food on a grill that has just cooked something else and wasn’t cleaned.   Basically, if I can’t read the ingredients of something myself, or watch it being cooked, it usually can’t be trusted. 

Anyway….. after all of that, I still feel just as bad [maybe even worse] than I did when I was diagnosed.  Nothing has gotten better.  Poor Daniel is such a sweet guy and SO supportive of me, but I know it’s tough for him, too, when we can only eat out at a few places [unless we go somewhere else and he has to eat alone]….and then when I have to cut short our dates because I’m always either sick on my stomache or too tired to even walk or keep my eyes open.  I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but thank you, Daniel, for being the amazing never-failing support that you are.

I went to the doctor again this week, and after countless more blood tests, they found that the celiac antibodies were still stongly present in my body.  They’re sending me to a specialist at Baptist Hospital in july, so I pray we figure this thing out.   In the meantime, I’ve also cut out most of the large-quantity dairy in my diet, and most of the citric acid in my diet [if you thought gluten was in everything, you should know about this stuff---it's on ALL your labels...food, soda, canned goods, shampoos, toothpaste, etc...].  So what’s left for me to eat, doctor?  Not a whole lot.   In fact, I’ve spent many nights crying because I’m so discouraged by all this, I am sick as a dog, and I’m hungry.  I’m essentially having to starve myself to figure out what’s wrong.  This isn’t fun, and I’d really appreciate your prayers.  The lbs are dropping fast, along with my high spirits.  Please pray for my health.  I love you guys, and you are such a great support team! I know God has a plan for all of this!