Tootin' for Gluten

Jay Baruchel "You don't even know what gluten is."
Seth Rogen "Well, no one does, man.  Gluten is just a broad term to classify bad things you put in your body.  Carbs: that's a gluten.  Calories:  that's another gluten.  That shit's everywhere!"
         -Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen in "This Is The End"

And so, in my constant need to be part of "the cool kids," I have joined the group of weirdos across the world who are "gluten free."  My nurse practitioner says that, most likely, I have "celiac disease," but to me it doesn't really matter what you call it.  The fact of the matter is that cookies, cake, doughnuts, garlic bread, BLTs, Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwiches, french toast, chocolate chip pancakes, Bosco Sticks, and pizza dough are off the table.  As you can see, I've given this quite a bit of thought.

It all began when I was a teenager, and my mom turned 40.  It seemed so old.  Foooooorty.  So, right around her fortieth birthday, my mom started having all kinds of stomach problems.  She went to doctors, who tried to prescribe her Xanax for anxiety.  I said her only anxiety was that the doctors wouldn't listen to her about her belly trouble.  Anyway, Mom took action (after having both an upper and a lower GI, which she does not recommend), and put herself on some kind of Jane Brody-Good Health-Food Elimination diet.  We ate lovely things like barley soup, tabbouleh, veggie lasagna, homemade yogurt, and fish.  I hate fish.  Eventually, Mom determined that she had Lactose Intolerance and, if she mostly avoided dairy products, she could do fine.  At some point since then, someone invented Lactaid, which helps her a little, but it is not the miracle cure for her that the commercials advertise.  And, truly, there is nothing more embarrassing (or hilarious), than my mother saying to the waitstaff at a restaurant, "Now, does that come with cheese?  I'd like no cheese please.  I can't have any dairy products.  They give me terrible gas and diarrhea, or sometimes I get so backed up I can't poop for months."  If we see my mom starting to launch into one of these talks, my dad and I really try to distract the waitstaff, knock over Mom's chair, start a table fire, something less painful than listening to her story.  (Love you, Mom.)

So, that being said, I've known it was coming.  You know, like you know death is coming.  Every once in a while, you joke about it with somebody, "Ha, yeah, 'cause we're all gonna die," but you really don't ponder it a whole lot.  As the digits on my birthday cake continued to climb, I began to cram in the milk, the cheese, the sour cream, and, ooooh, the ice cream.  I made sure that I got my fair share of ice cream, in case 40 hit and that was the end.

About a year and a half ago, around Halloween, I got this weird pain in my side.  I thought, "Hhmmm, either my appendix is going to burst, or the movie Alien is true."  Eric and I met our friends, the Burs, and their kids to go trick-or-treating downtown. 

Doniel Bur said to me, "Laura Hall, you're walking 'gimpy'!"

And I was.  I told everyone I was the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and we have all these pictures of me humped over, pretending that I'm helping the kids with their pumpkins, but really I'm just trying to keep the pain at bay.  After we got home that night, I met my mom at the emergency room.

Diverticulitis.  That was my diagnosis.  Which, according to my nursing-student sister-in-law, is an "old person disease."  So, I stopped eating seeds, corn, nuts, I even got a little goofy about nacho chips (sharp edges, ya know).  But, despite avoiding strawberries, blueberries, every tiny little seed-like food, I still had a few more episodes.  A colonoscopy showed nothing.  Forty was approaching... Could it be?

I turned 39 in December, and decided to take the bull by the horns.  In January, I started my own version of my mom's 1987 food elimination diet.  (Of course, I didn't make my family eat anything nasty, except Quinoa, which I do not recommend, and Lentils, which I feel could be used to elicit war secrets from determined spies.)  The results... GLUTEN.

Wha?  I was not prepared for this.  I did not eat enough pizza or breadsticks.  My husband makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies.  I can't go THE REST OF MY LIFE without them, can I?  Eric and I bought some gluten-free flour mix, which had the consistency of Ben and Becca's sand box.  Mmm.  I've tried some of the gluten free cookie mixes.  Crumbly, gritty, with a touch of chocolate thrown in.  My girlfriend, Kim, has been gluten free for a few years, so she gives me advice, support, tells me to stay away from the evil wheat.  However, her alter-ego is acting as my Gluten-Dealer, since she is constantly pinning delicious looking desserts on Pinterest, "Now with TWICE the gluten!"  I think she's secretly out to get me, so she can raise Ben and Becca.  They are pretty cute.

And, did I mention, that now as I avoid gluten like the plague (at a recent retreat, the host asked, "Can I have gluten in the house?"  No, it's airborne!  Aaah, don't pass the wheat field, my head'll pop off!), I have discovered that LACTOSE is also no longer my friend? 

So, basically, I am turning into a 40-year-old rabbit.  I can have celery, apples, the occasional lettuce.  My menu's getting limited because, as Seth Rogen said, "That shit's everywhere."