Kevins Crazy World
Friday, February 11, 2005
Hey guys,
It's been over a year since that whole fiasco with the hyperthyroid/ Grave's Disease, and as it turned out the day they were supposed to irradicate my thyroid for good, the nurse paused and said, "wait a sec, you don't have Graves Disease... you have accute thyroiditis" So as it turned out, my hyperthyroid was only temporary and went away quickly. Since then though, my sister has been diagnosed with a new auto-immune disease (well new to us) called celiac's disease. She had been feeling really sick and tired for her last 2 years of high school, and then during her 2nd year of college she was just too sick to do anything besides get out of bed and she couldn't eat many foods. They tested her for celiac's disease and her results came back positive. For all of those who don't know what celiac's disease, lets just say that I'd rather have diabetes AND hyperthyroid than JUST celiac's disease any day... but then again my sis would rather have celiac's disease than diabetes because she hates needles, so I guess it's preference. The thing that makes celiac's disease so bad is the fact that you can't eat any glutens. Glutens are proteins found in wheat, barley, oats, and many processed foods. If you don't understad the enormity of what I just said, imagine not being able to eat any food products in the isles of the grocery store because if you do, it will make you so sick that you have no energy to even get out of bed. Glutens are even found in shampoo, lipstick, stamps, envelopes, and soaps, so my sister has to read every list of ingredients before she can eat any food, or before she can use any product that might be suseptable to harm her. We haven't been able to eat out at restaurants because if the food that she is served was cooked with or near any glutens, then she'll be sick... EVEN A CRUMB. We've had to get her her own set of silverware and cooking items so that she doesn't cross contaminate her non-gluten foods with our glutens. So, my sister has been gluten free for about 2 months and she's not feeling much better. It's been a slow process because we are now realizing that she's not only celiac, but is also iron difficient and has possible food allergies. I really hope that she gets better soon because she's my sister and even though we butt heads daily, I still love her.
There are a few good things going in my life, it's almost been 2 months to the day that I've been dating my girlfriend, Joey, and she's been the best thing in my life. I never thought that I could find happiness at such a young age and I can't believe how lucky I am. We're alway so happy together and even when my day is horrible I can always look forward to her brightening my day. My sister even gets something out of my relationship with Joey. Since Joey loves horseback riding and does it every week, my sis, who's currently taking a semester off from college and is taking a photography class at a local community college, wanted to go take pictures of her for her class. Since as long as I can remember, my sister has loooooooved horseback riding, but the only problem is she has nowhere to ride, and if she had a place, the cost of riding would shy her away from it. As luck would have it, the place where Joey horseback rides, the owners are looking for people to ride their horses for FREE, and they invited my sister to do it. It's like a dream come true for my sis since she's had little to no exercise in the past 2 months with her whole celiac thing, and it is a great way to have her get energy back and enjoy it at the same time. Now that you're all caught up, I just want to say one more thing before I go, over the past couple weeks/ months my grades have been dropping, and I've been tired more often (which is SOOOOOO unlike me.... I get up at 7:30 on a weekend for the fun of it) and I've had stomach aches and headaches almost on a regular basis. Although my whole family was tested for celiac when we found out that my sister had it, these are all symptoms of celiac's disease, so we're thinking of getting an endoscopy done on me to find out once and for all if I have it. I realllllllllllllly hope that I don't because all the food that I love to eat would be gone for good but then again I'd also like to find out why I've been getting bad grades and feeling bad recently. I'm just a highschool student trying to get into a good college, and gettting worse grades isn't a beneficial thing for that believe it or not. :-D
So to summerize, I don't have Grave's disease... still, my sis has celiac, I have a awesome girlfriend, I might have celiac's but I REALLY hope not. If anyone would like to talk to my sister about what she's going through (or me), just e-mail me at kevin@kevinscrazyworld.com and I'll write back to you asap, or if it's to my sis, I'll ask have her read it and have write back to you. We could use suggestions about ways to make a celiac's life better or ideas about what I may have (if it's not celiac's) from anyone's personal stories. Some good celiac websites that we've found are: www.glutensolutions.com , www.glutenfreepantry.com , www.Celiac.com , and a good online support group is http://forums.delphiforums.com/celiac/start . If you have any questions, comments, or just want to talk you can either sign my guestbook or e-mail me. Oh, one more thing, I TURN 17 IN A MONTH!!
~Kevin~
