Tea Detox (and a little pampering)

I'm drinking this for the next month and seeing what happens. Considering I have the most sensitive stomach of anyone I know who doesn't have an official digestive disease, and considering my crazy list of sensitivities, and considering the fact that all the traditional medicine solutions (ending with the "it's all in your head" diagnosis from that un-fabulous gastroenterologist I went to) haven't worked for me,I figured why not give it a shot... I started this morning. I'm not sure exactly what I'm expecting, but just generally a happier stomach and less feeling sick would be great.
I'll report back after enough time has passed to assess.
I decided this week that I'm going to be nice to my body for the next little while and see what happens. That means more exercise and more sleep, and better eating. Now, I'm not going to deprive myself. If I want a spoon or two of sorbet, okay. But no full-fledged, massive cheating attacks. I've been pretty good so far. We'll see how long it lasts.
Now excuse me, I'm off to get a massage.

Because There always has to be follow-up

Vanity Fair's answer to the New Yorker's Barack Obama cover:

I love that they're "terrorist fist jabbing" too...

If you're not outraged...

Have you heard that expression before: If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention?
Every once in a while, something comes along and really bothers me and I have to rant about it. The latest in this series comes via XUP's cucumber post. Go read it here.
Done? Good, now let's discuss. So, how many people in the world are currently malnourished, underfed, suffering from hunger and starvation? I don't know. I don't have the statistics, but I know, know, know for absolute certainty that the number is high. That too many go without food. That too many have nothing and would take anything just to survive. But we can't eat crooked cucumbers? We can't even display them on our grocery shelves? At least in the EU, they're going to start selling them again, but what about here?
People, let's think about this, food is eaten, i.e. chewed up, turned into a pulp, gets digested and will look much more disgusting by the time we get any nutrients from it than anything we could imagine on our grocery shelves, so does it matter if it's not perfect when our privileged hands select it at the store? How spoiled are we? How far removed are we from what our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering?
I'm going to put out a request regarding food: Let's all be more careful. Let's buy as much as we need and cook in the right amount and serve ourselves as much as we need and not throw any away. Let's not buy twice what we eat and dump the rest in the garbage. Let's remember those poor kids with convex stomachs because they have nothing. It's the least we can do. Really, it's minuscule.

H & M will answer my prayers

So, I've been complaining about finding hijabi appropriate clothing where I still like the style, right? Well, I think I've made a breakthrough: Over the weekend at camp, I had the following conversation not once, but two times:

• Me: I love your (insert item of clothing here: shirt/jacket/skirt/etc). Where did you get it? Please oh please don't say another country.
• Fellow camp attendee: H & M.
• Me: woohoooooooooooooooooooo!

In the past, this answer would irritate me to no end, because H & M has no stores in Ottawa. Now that I live in Montreal, this answer delights me. There will be an H & M opening in August 6 blocks from my house. Can I wait that long, or do I trek across the city next week to check out what I can find?

Hilariously Scary Misunderstanding

Here's a story from camp. On Saturday, I had a little cry-fest about missing my sister with one of my close friends from Ottawa. Afterwards, even though I'd washed my face, I still looked like Rudolf with a sunburn and an emotional breakdown (red nose, red eyes, red cheeks, red everything.) One of the other girls asked me what was wrong.
What I said: "I just miss my sister." Pause. "She's in Dubai".
What she heard: "I just lost my sister." Pause. "She's in Dubai".
This explains the horrified look on her face as I explained and then rushed away.

Air Canada Evil

Not enough time to write about this last week in the middle of heading back to Montreal on Thursday night and leaving for camp on Friday afternoon, but what follows is an account of Wednesday night's adventure with my sister's trip to Dubai.
I left work early on Wednesday to see her and the little angels off, along with my parents. We packed into the van (6 people and 9 huge pieces of luggage, plus hand bags, so when I say packed I really mean it) and drove to the Ottawa airport. By the time we got there, there was a torrential downpour that lasted for about 20 minutes.
My sister's flight was at 6 p.m. This was at 3:30. Her itinerary was essentially Ottawa-TO, TO-Dubai. After getting her bags through and saying some VERY VERY VERY tearful goodbyes, my sister and the little angels went through security, and my parents and I headed back up to the top floor where we could watch her gate until she boarded. This was at 5.
(An aside: Little Angela and I's conversation as I hugged her at security.

• Her: Nonno, why are you so sad?
• Me (with tears streaming down my face and a total wreck: I'm not sad, honey, I'm just a bit emotional because I won't see you again until next summer.
• Her (with a quizzical look on her face): okay.
• Me: Can I get a kiss?
• She kisses my right cheek
• Me: and another one
• She kisses my left cheek
• Me: now let me kiss you.
• And as I do, with the little puddles of tears that have gathered over my lips, she waits politely and then wipes my kisses away with the back of her hands...)

Here is the Cole's Notes version of the story: At 6:45, a plane leaves from my sister's gate and she doesn't get on it. We check the screens with the flight information. It says this is my sisters' plane that's just departed. We don't understand. Her flight was supposed to be at 6 but she won't get on this flight. At 7:15 a second flight leaves and again she doesn't board. We page her and have her call us. She explains that the plane that left at 6:45 was the 4 p.m. plane and that they won't let her take a different plane because her baggage is already checked to the 6 p.m. flight which is now seriously late and may not make it in time for the connection.
At 7:50 they finally go through the gate and disappear onto the plane. We watch the plane take off at 8. We go home. I start crying all over again while I pick up my Little Angela's blocks from the floor and start putting them away. We won't be playing with these again before next summer. We pray our sunset prayer. We sit and chat. The phone rings. It's my sister. The Dubai flight is gone without her. The next one isn't until Friday night.
And what does Air Canada offer her in the meantime? A hotel, maybe, for the next two days? No. How about a place to store her luggage in the airport for the next two days? Also no. Okay, okay, well at least they're going to send someone down with her to the luggage carousel to help carry her 9 BAGS, seeing as how she has the Little Angels with her and they're not exactly Little Angels at 10 p.m. after being strapped into strollers/car seats/plane seats since 2:30 in the afternoon, right? No. They won't be doing that either.
We call my parents-in-law who live in TO. They are wonderful and leave for the airport immediately to pick her up. She stays with them for the next two days, and on Friday night, while we're at camp, she boards her Dubai flight.
She's safely in her new house now. The kids are happy, and they're all together again. It just took an extra two days, that's all.

Camp

Too exhausted to write a detailed or comprehensive post that may actually make sense about camp, so instead, I'm just putting down some random thoughts. Camp was awesome (it always is):

• Hours of sleep I got from Friday to Sunday night: 5
• Old friends from Ottawa I got to hang out with: 4
• Number of slices of banana bread I ate when I broke down on Sunday: 6 (but they were small!)
• Times I cried: 3
• Number of marshmallows I ate around the campfire: 6
• Number of campers: 140+
• Hours we drove from Montreal to get to the campsite: 2
• Buses needed to get Montreal campers there: 2
• Mosquito bites I am now covered in: Too many. I'll have to spend the next three hours counting and get back to you.
• Little sun-burny rash spots I have on my face because I forgot to apply sunscreen most of the time I was outside: A LOT
• Number of canoes that tipped in the water when the girls went swimming: 1 for sure, and I suspect a second but not actually sure.
• Chocolate consumed over the weekend: none - unless you count Nuttela, which I shouldn't have spread on my bread, but did anyway
• Coffee consumed: Not enough - 3 cups
• Tea consumed: Not enough - 1 cup
• Cell phone reception to the outside world from the campsite: None
• Number of unclaimed items going into the lost and found at the MAC Montreal Mosque from the end of camp: 3 (a towel, a sleeping bag, and a pillow)

And some of my favourite photos ...

No Blogging This Weekend

I'm about to head out to the MAC Youth summer camp, spend some time with my brothers and sisters and nature and fill my soul up. This means very very little sleep, lots of laughing and crying and praying and playing sports, and NO Internet. This is good. Everyone needs to be weened off every once in a while. I'll be back after the weekend (although possibly I'll be extra-ordinarily groggy and not make any sense for a day or two... we'll see.)
In the meantime, I leave you with a stolen post from my new writing hero, Journey Mama, one of the most beautiful things I've read in a very very long time. I don't think I can steal her words and put them here, so please, just follow this link and read this. You won't regret it, I promise.

Brilliance or Racism?

By now, you've all heard about the controversial latest cover of the New Yorker, with Barack and Michelle Obama in the white house, he dressed up in a turban and she wearing a machine gun slung across her back, while they "terrorist fist jabbed" with an American flag burning in the fireplace and what looked like a pic of Osama Bin Laden hanging from the wall. I'm not going to write a great big editorial on it. Enough others have done that and apparently it's offensive to a lot of people. If it offends you, that's your prerogative. I actually think it's kind of ingenious: so totally over the top obviously fake in that it brings out every ridiculous, hyperbolic fear of some neo-conservatives as to what Obama stands for, and pretty laugh out loud funny too.

But just to placate those who are offended, here's a happy-themed Obama link. Truly silly, but fun. (Call out to Journey Mama's site, where I initially found the link while reading her archived entries...)

Soul Touching

For my soon-to-depart sister:

You opened me with your words
Like a flower
In rain, just a little afraid to be pelted
But wanting the water
Opened to a thirst I didn't realize I had

Not a need but a want
To be connected, to be held in the thoughts of
Another human being, a beautiful creature
With wings for ideas, each notion
Touching down to tickle the back of my neck
And fly away
Hover on the edge of the horizon
Turn to wave before leaving

You opened me to feed me
To nurture my pieces with extra
Wholesome cooking
The cream rich in your soup
The bread soft
The dough chewy after hard stale crackers
(And here I thought the bucking up was good
And here I was learning to be tough
But I learnt again what it is to fall
Heavily into a bed, to sink into it
To close your eyes and dream
When still awake
To feel all the succulence
And not only the sustenance)

And all with only words
To make me feel a giant
To fill me full to my brim so I can
Grow beyond them
Look down from high high high on up
And see that they are not so big
That I am bigger
(If only in my head and your words)
And stop being fine when asked.
No, be good. Be truly, really good.

My Baby

Little Angela runs up to me when I come in today and says, her eyes full of wonder, in Arabic: "Auntie Nonno, I'm going to the Emirates!" as though it's news. I think she's only just realized. I pretend to be surprised for her sake. I would hate for someone to rain on my parade and say what I'd told them is common knowledge by then.
Another Little Angela tidbit: Last week, she is drinking a glass of milk and has about 8 drops left,when she decides to share with her grandma. "All this?" says Grandma. "You're so generous. thank you sooooooooo much!" and Little Angela beems with pride for a moment, before she sees her gradmother tip the glass back to drink the last few drops, and panics: "No Grandma! Don't drink it all! Leave me some!"
8 drops!

My God, I am going to miss this child.

Seuss Lovin'

M and I were talking about Dr. Seuss the other day, and he mentioned Green Eggs and Ham, but I don't think he's read the others that much. My favourite one: Oh the Places You'll Go!
It's basically a graduation speech. Just about the best ever graduation speech because it says everything that needs to be said about jumping into something new and being confident and then being scared and then making it work out and all the guck in between. Also awesome, Horton Hears a Who. And check out this site if you're a general Seuss fan.

Just spreading the joy:

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets.
Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener therein the wide open air.
Out there things can happenand frequently do
to people as brainyand footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
OH!THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
and hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place……
for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jakeo
r a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes, they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

-Dr. Seuss

Random Other-Post Follow-ups

Some unrelated-to-each other ideas that may each be related to older posts:

• They say the proof is in the pudding... well, I say the proof is in the brownies. As promised, I bought cocoa, and on a whim, made some wheat-free, cane sugar brownies a half hour ago. The difference between these and the carob ones is astounding. I am truly a chocoholic, and it's not to be cured.
• Because I complained about the lack of hijabi-friendly clothing this season: 1)For any hijabi-Montrealers, there is a booth inside the Eaton's centre near the Metro McGill entrance that sells scarves, long tunics, and other hijabi stuff for reasonable prices. I went last Monday and have a new tunic to show for my efforts. 2) My mum-in-law is way too sweet: after listening to me complain during our last outing about the lack of long sleeved items available, she apparently found one of the very very few things on the market the other day and picked it up for me.... 3) There's a new hijabi clothing store in Montreal called "Inty" (cool play on words because this is how to say the feminine "you" in Arabic). I haven't been there, but I hear from a friend that the stuff is good quality and affordable. If you know the city, it's located where the old Multi-vision store was.
• I finished Bel Canto, the first book from Jen's suggested list, and in an effort not to spoil it, all I can say is GO READ THIS BOOK. Sooooooooooooooooooooo good. Meets all my super-picky criteria: good characters, good writing, good plot. As for Jen's request that I tell her what I thought of the controversial ending, I'll just say that it's crushing, but marvelous, and totally plausible. This book leaves your heart-aching. You love the characters that much. Next, I'm starting The Namesake, which is supposed to also be great. I hope it's as great. Keep your suggestions coming. I'm planning on reading a lot, as I'm hoping to write a lot and for me, the best way to do that is through reading.

What it Takes

Do you love wordplay? If so, listen to this song by Jason Mraz. Just delightful and poetic in that light, fun way. Some of the lines are so simple, and yet very very true. Youtube video's pretty silly, but just try to enjoy the song.

Curiosity

Shhh...
Open your eyes. Look.
Each person who passes you
on these city streets
is an atom
of life
a leaf from a Maple tree shading
the small flowers below.

Do you wish
in some moments
to know all their stories?
To marvel at their miracles
big and small
to meet
the criers and the liars
the givers
the needers
the huge dilemmas
and the small paradoxes

Do you wish to meet
the Pandoras
to watch them untangling
the worms from the earth
shaking out the swirls and swoops
making straight lines
of everything?

For instance:
This boy who walks by
with a toque on his head
in mid-July
floppy red hair emerging
from the sides
(falling into his eyes)
what is his story?

How about that girl
on the curb at the bookstore
sorting through cards of
identical photographs
is this her life?
Does she go home at night?

I should keep walking.
The air changes angles
blows up instead of
sideways.
I need to look down
to continue
to move through time and
and space and experience
If I look longer
they will paralyze me
with my questions
too many to count

and everything will stop.

Things that make me cry

A few posts back I said I was crying a lot, and that's okay... and then I thought, these people are going to think I'm miserable, and now I'm back to explain:

I'm someone who wears my heart on my sleeve. I know, I know, so cliche, but it really is true and I can't think of another way to say it. While I do cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm overcome with almost any other kind of emotion too: joy, pride, love, for example. I also cry - or at least feel the lump rise in my throat - when I'm moved, and I'm very often moved. Some examples:

1. M and I were watching Mulan the other day. Caution, spoilers approaching! At the end, when the emperor thanks her for saving all of them and she finds the whole country appreciating her, I got a lump in my throat. Yeah, for a Disney movie... sooooo....
2. Sports championships: I cry EVERY year when I see the captain of the winning team pick up the Stanley Cup, hold it over his head and skate around the rink with it. I cry more when he passes it to his anxious teammates. I cry when they take pictures with their family and friends. I cry (or get choked up) in tennis when the players shake hands at the end of a match. Same during Euro or the World Cup or the Olympics when the trophies and medals are handed out, but especially when the anthem of the winner(s) is played. It doesn't even have to be my country or my anthem. Just that moment, and all the hard work these athletes put in, and hearing their song, I feel a surge of pride for them and it chokes me up.
3. Beautiful words: If I read a great line of poetry, or something in a book, or a song, and it touches me, it can bring tears to my eyes. Some recent examples. From Journey Mama's blog, the following line: "You search with eyes open wide and sometimes full of tears".
   And another amazing line, this one from Bel Canto, the book I'm reading thanks to Jen's suggestions: "People love each other for all sorts of reasons... Most of the time, we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It's not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do."
4. Quran: Quran is the most beautiful poetry, especially if you can read it in Arabic, and not just an interpretation. There are lines that give me chills for their beauty, and on some days, when I read and the words are as though they were written just for me, speaking to something I have just experienced or felt, I get teary. Sometimes, too, I read a verse and it happens to be a verse my dad often reads in prayer, and I'm transported back to one of our old living rooms, standing with my mother and sisters and listening and worshipping in a row, my dad reciting softly but strongly, and I feel a surge of love mixed with sadness, and this also makes me cry.
5. Art, or the thought of it: I got home on Thursday, and M showed me the easel he had set up for the painting he is hoping to do, and the thought of him getting to paint when he'd been wanting to for so long and hadn't had a chance made me cry of happiness. I suppose it's less the art and more the seeing him do the thing he loves that moved me. Visual art is to M what writing is to me. Although art itself can make me cry. A painting, or a photograph, can stir me and move me to that point.
6. Reunions and departures: On our trip to Egypt in February, I would cry when I saw family as we were arriving, upon hugging my and M's aunts and uncles and cousins, and again when we were leaving. I think the reunion and the departure is the epitomizing point of being with those you love, and I rarely manage to keep a dry eye if I know it'll be a long time before I see them again. Along these lines, I cry every time my sister comes and goes from and to California. I expect to cry A LOT when my other sister leaves for Dubai.
7. Movies: I am the crazy sap who can turn on the TV at the end of a cheesy movie for the wedding scene, or the funeral scene, and not know the characters or the plot, and then hear the moving music crescendo and start to bawl my eyes out. This one I can't explain very well, and though I'm the worst at it, almost all of my sisters are also guilty as charged. Example: the first movie my poor uncle's wife watched with us when she moved to Ottawa many many years ago was Little Women. At the end, she looked around, and there we were, four sisters sobbing away, struggling up off the couch to hug each other to death and say how much we loved each other. My uncle's wife grew up with two brothers. Needless to say, this was a first-time experience for her. Don't worry though, she's gotten over it.

Lightning

The husband of one of the women I met at the hijab potluck last month died this week. He was struck by lightning while sheltering himself from the rain under a tree in a storm. They are not old. My heart aches for her and I'm praying for them right now.
The suddenness of it is quite shocking. We like to think of death as something that happens to those who are sick, or old, or living in a war torn country. But death is anywhere and everywhere. It's real, and it doesn't announce itself. Every day, every hour, every minute we should be thanking God for the fact our hearts are still beating.

The Candy Conundrum

My work group in Ottawa in pretty tight knit, and most of us have been working together for a fairly long time (at 2 years, I'm a relative newbie.) One thing about us, we LOVE candy, and we're waaaaaaaaaaaaay too generous with each other. The proof? By the printer and photocopiers, there is almost always a bowl full of something yummy: werthers originals, chocolates, gummies, you name it. If not, it's those fabulous Danish butter cookies. When we're feeling "healthy" it's salted, roasted peanuts, or worse yet, BBQ flavour.

Yesterday, it was jujubes.

Now, I just finished telling you about my allergies, so you'd think I'd lay off the sauce, so to speak, right? Well, my self-control system basically revolves around a "don't buy it, don't eat it approach". The problem is when I'm not the one buying it but it's magically turning up anyway. When the yummies are in front of me every time I get up to print or photocopy, I have great difficulty resisting. And that other concept of moderation? Non-existent. With me, "I'll only have one" becomes two becomes three four seventeen. Basically, it's cold turkey or a full-fledged candy attack. I don't even LIKE jujubes, but having them there makes me think I SHOULD like them. And appreciate them. By eating them. Sigh.

The funniest part of this is that lately no one will confess to bringing in the candy. Someone's doing it, but she/he is maintaining anonymity. Meanwhile, we all walk by, shove another piece of whatever's there into our mouths, and mumble how we have to stop.

I'm proud to announce that I had NO jujubes yesterday, and none of the toffee that was in the bowl the day before. I can't even remember if there was anything there on Tuesday, but if there was, I held off. Maybe I'm getting the hang of this self-control thing after all?

New Blogs on the Side

Hey Folks,
I've been doing a little explorin' on the world wide web and cyber-visiting on some new sites, and it's time to add them to the blogroll. Drumroll...
XUP: In Ottawa. Fun, thoughtful, astute writing.
Mooselim: The title alone says it. So corny, so hilarious. I've talked about these guys before. It's basically the conversations these Canadian Muslims would have at Timmy's, but online.
Fly Fish Fly and Journey Mama: These folks just moved to India from the American West Coast. Follow their adventures. Both blogs belong to this fabulous couple. Beautiful writing. Definite must-read.
Viotet Sky: Fun, musings. Somewhere in Ontario.

and a new "cool site": Altmuslim. Great site with news, reviews, editorials, discussion forums, about all things Muslim or affecting Muslims.

Celiac Heads Up (Or "the great big food allergy post")

I saw this article from the Globe and Mail, a primer about the basic symptoms of celiac and what to do if you have it, and thought I should share.
I don't have celiac, but end up buying a lot of products for those with celiac because I do have a serious sensitivity to wheat, and gluten-free products automatically mean they're wheat-free. I can relate to a lot of what's in the article:

"According to a 2007 survey of the Canadian Celiac Association's more than 5,000 members, the average time it took to get diagnosed was 12 years. Many respondents had consulted three or more doctors before getting their diagnosis"

and

"Symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, joint pain and migraines - ones typically not recognized as gut-related - are commonly reported, and the diagnosis is often anemia, stress, irritable bowel syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome."

I spent about 10 years feeling constantly sick, cutting out different foods and food products from my diet to no avail. I lost close to 20 pounds at my worst point, mostly because it was easier to feel hungry then to deal with the constant nausea and irritation after eating. I went to 3 different doctors and took 3 different tests, the last one being the endoscopy mentioned in the article. When that one was done, the gastroenterologist (aka, Mr. Specialist) asked me if I was a people-pleaser, told me I should relax, and concluded that "it was all in my head".
It was a visit to a naturopath and taking a Vega test suggested by a friend 3 months later that turned up the cause for all my problems: I have serious sensitivities to:

• all cow dairy (milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, etc.)
• wheat and some grains from the wheat family (bulgur, semolina)
• all processed sugar
• aspartame
• msg
• cola

I have milder sensitivities to a whole list of fruits, veggies, and nuts:

• bananas
• tomatoes
• peanuts
• oranges, clementines, grapefruits
• grapes

At first, walking out of that clinic after the test, I was trying to figure out what was left to eat. That was close to 3 years ago. Now, I've gotten it fairly under control. I've found a lot of alternatives to my formerly favourite foods, and I know when I'm "cheating" and having stuff that'll upset me, so I can decide whether it's worth it or not. I don't always make the best decision: sometimes that chocolate bar looks completely irresistible in the checkout line and then feels like the worst decision ever once consumed, but at least I'm the one in control of the stupid decision I decide to make.

Moral of the story? Trust your body if your doctor isn't making any sense. You're your own best judge. If you're sick and someone tells you you're fine, find someone else to talk to. Your body will thank you.