So How Are You Dealing With Your Family and Friends?

When I first began to tell people I had Celiac Disease I had some pretty odd reactions. Most people had never heard of it. If they had they didn’t know what it meant. Most don’t want to ask, after all, it does have that word “disease” in it. It’s not catchy, doesn’t spread like the common cold or the flu and you can’t get it from anyone, anywhere. Except, probably, from your long passed grandparent, aunt, uncle or some other distant, or perhaps, close relative. Celiac is usually an inherited disease, in the same family of diseases as diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. All autoimmune diseases. It just means the body turns on itself. There are little soldiers inside beating each other up. The more gluten you take in the happier they are. I generally am amused at the reaction I receive when asked how I possibly EAT! My rheumatologist, who I have seen for all these years and who diagnosed me after several years of trying to figure out why this crazy lady had so many really odd symptoms that no one else has, still asks me how do I live without pasta. He knows I come from a large Italian family & have big Sunday suppers, mostly of pasta with homemade sauce and homemade everything else. People always say they know they couldn’t do it. Oh yes you can. I just think of the alternative and now I’ll never go back to “toxic” pasta and “illegal” bread. No way. You see, bloating, cramping, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, on and on, is always in the back of my mind. I can’t tell you how many times I have attempted to order a meal at a restaurant that I could somehow manipulate to be gluten free by the time it arrived at my table. There are no restaurants where I live with the words “gluten free” on the menu so I must prod the server for information related to what might be in the food I want to order. Since most people don’t know what I mean by gluten free, I just ask if it contains wheat. If there is nothing visible on the plate that looks like wheat the answer will always be no. Don’t blame the server, they don’t know they are deceiving you. Always follow that up with something like…is there gravy?….is it breaded?….have those fries been dusted in flour?….is there croutons on the salad? The reaction I usually get when I say that I can’t have bread is this…”oh, there’s no wheat in it, it’s white bread”. I don’t laugh, that would be rude. I just follow that up with, sorry, can’t have it. We Celiac’s will never be able to educate the masses on what it really means to live without gluten. We just have to accept that this is our job, no pay of course. When someone doesn’t get it, just smile and say no thanks, and order the salad with oil and vinegar and dress it yourself.