ordinary life, with a side of mommy guilt

[saffronhare]

Cheerful note: NetFlix informs me that Magic Mike will be arriving in my mailbox today. Isn't that thoughtful of them? I didn't even remember it was on the list!


It looks like the hockey outing will happen in March instead of in February. Getting to it this month, in terms of both time and money, is just too squeezy-tight, though I am still determined for this to happen somehow.

Today, we score one for the college student who is studying Human Nutrition this semester. FionaPie has been struggling with some tummy issues and I kind of owe PB (eldest daughter) props for pointing us in the direction of gluten sensitivity. She definitely showed a lot of those symptoms! The potential problems from malabsorption were a little bit worrisome, so we hit the doctor's office yesterday to get on the path to more information and (hopefully) resolution. We’ll have the blood test results -- a "gluten panel" and a CBC to check for simple deficiencies -- in a week or less. In the meantime, the girl is greatly encouraged and has the doc’s permission to to experiment with pulling glutinous things out of her diet to see how that makes her feel. As he put it, if it is nutritionally balanced and makes her feel better, then he can support it no matter what the blood tests say (because sometimes they’re inconclusive and nobody wants an endoscopy thingie down their throat). She's got a pretty good food/symptom diary started, and I'm trying not to choke on mommy guilt.

Even the most awesome D&D character has one ability score that's a bit low, and I guess hers is Constitution. Or something.

Rollicking headache today, complete with light sensitivity. AWESOME. But I have a full and potentially awesome day ahead, so I’ll take some meds and plug through it. Might need to look at why I seem to be clenching my jaw when I sleep again, because that's (as we say in Holland) no ghouda.

I still really don’t *like* getting up at 6 a.m. to make hot breakfast (too bad, so sad, right?), but it clearly makes a difference in the quality of our morning and the time I get to work, so I hope to make peace with it soon. I think it helps that the new clock function Android has updated onto my phone has a very twitchy “snooze” button for the alarm. I never know for sure if I’ve hit snooze or just turned it off . . . and Hungry Fiona is usually lurking in the kitchen. I figure I’ve gotta get gracious about this, because suffering is optional, right?

Testing at TKD for my brown belt tonight. Unaccountably nervous about that – like, butterflies and everything. Then KiraDeara leads her parent-teacher conference at 7:40 p.m., followed by the younger girls spending the night at agrnmn's place and going to school with him tomorrow to work on Projektz. And...LadySadie is having some friends over tonight for cake/ice cream and a sleepover to celebrate her 18th birthday. Thankfully, diermuid is a hero and will be making the cake today.

Comments

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

That is a lot of stuff going on there for you, lady.

Best wishes to FionaPie. And even for people who have never tested positive for gluten sensitivity, I have yet to hear a single report ever from anyone who reported feeling worse after going gluten-free (as long as they're doing it right).

Just please please please don't believe that a "gluten free" label is a license to eat something. Those gluten-free cookies (and bread, and pastas) can be nasty poison bombs, too. See Whole9's take on the gluten-free label here.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

YES. We've talked a lot in the past about how, for example, "sugar-free" doesn't exactly mean awesomeness, so I think the parallels will be pretty easy for her to follow. She wants to try gluten-free bread because SANDWICHES are important in her life, but she is mostly wanting to look at things that just naturally aren't glutinous.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

"sugar-free" doesn't exactly mean awesomeness, so I think the parallels will be pretty easy for her to follow.

Oh, good! That's huge. If she understands that, it'll make the gluten-free thing easier. I hope.

NGL, I still miss burgers-with-buns. =/

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

At this point, I'm just hoping the blood tests don't come back showing some sort of off-the-charts sensitivity (which, given what we've observed, should not be the case), because WOW. I need to *stop* reading the "kids with celiac" message boards before my head explodes with all the people saying OMG AVOID CROSS-CONTAMINATION and don't use that spoon or DEATH.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

If she does end up being sensitive to gluten there's lots of resources online to help find places where gluten can be hidden in foods (for instance, gluten is often used as a thickener in soups and broths).
Hy-Vee has an aisle dedicated to gluten-free foods and has a lot of resources to help people get started. There's also a magazine called Living Without that has good advice and recipes to help learn how to cook gluten-free.
Good luck, and I hope FionaPie feels better!

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Dood. Put down the mommy guilt and step away from The Internetz :-)

Speaking here from extensive second-hand experience (due to Princess' wheat sensitivities, and yes, Con is absolutely her dump stat), no, in fact, not death. Discomfort, quite probably. A steep learning curve of what foods her body does and does not tolerate well, almost certainly. Perhaps some rough days where she's eaten something less good for her and all y'all have to deal with the fall-out of grumpy-kid-in-pain. And surprises, when it crops up somewhere you never thought to look for it (for which reason E always carries some pain meds -- she's gotten really good at interrogating restaurant staff, but sometimes something gets missed.)

Even if she's got a sensitivity (which she may not; who knows, at this point?), unless it's a really severe one cross-contamination isn't hard to avoid. Remember to wash knives and boards and such, try not to make bread like the Swedish Chef, and you'll be fine. And as you say, if it were that severe, you would know it already.

As far as bread goes, some people complain about the texture because gf bread isn't as chewy as wheat bread. If that's the case for her, best solution is to toast it; the texture of toasted gf bread is much closer to the texture of toasted wheat bread. If she's going to go through a lot of it, it's probably worth getting a small 2-slice toaster so that she doesn't have to get wheat crumbs on her bread from the family toaster.

Also, in the category of extremely delicious-but-unhealthy food: Waldo Pizza has a gluten-free crust, and also several non-dairy topping choices (can't recall if that's a thing for her, or just PB). And *breadsticks*. Oh my god, the gluten free breadsticks. Most gf breadsticks you can get are of the crispy variety, but not these. These are real, honest-to-goodness bready breadsticks. It's 1000% worth the somewhat high price to get those for Princess when we're in town, because she still hasn't found an equivalent here in Chicago. The look of bliss on her face the first time she had them was pretty amazing -- apparently she hadn't had breadsticks in about a decade. But I digress.

Also also, drippings + pinch of xanthan gum + immersion blender = awesome gravy. The immersion blender is a pretty critical part of that equation, though. Just stirring never gets it quite right.

Anyway, I'm hoping that the tests come back clear and all this turns out to be information that you don't end up needing. And if you have questions on specific products or are trying to find a substitute for something, please, feel free to ask me. I have to know all this stuff anyway, so someone might as well get some use out of it :-)