Glutarded

One of the hardest things I've had to go through in the past year is having to give up life as I knew it by going on a gluten free diet. Last March, I noticed that I was feeling sick in my stomach pretty much every day. It wasn't anything special. Just the general on the couch, feeling sorry for myself, calling for a priest to say my last rights sorta thing. You know, the typical flu bug. I was mostly over it the week before Benedict's Baptism, so I wasn't worried that anything would happen that day. Well long story short, I passed out during Communion, lay in the most extreme pain I've experienced in my life, and ended up in the emergency room for a good twelve hours. Yup. That was not the coolest day ever. 

So for the month after that, we had multiple tests done on me to try and figure out why I was so sick. CCAT scans, blood tests, a pregnancy test... they all came out negative. (But seriously, was that pregnancy test really necessary? I wear a purity ring. Gosh.) It was really hard feeling so sick and not knowing why. I spent a lot of my days lying on the couch, too sick to do much but offer up my pain for whatever was on my heart at the time. 

It was my pediatrician who first suggested that I eliminate wheat from my diet. I despised him for uttering those dreaded words. In fact, I was dragged into it kicking and screaming by both him and my mom. I did not want to give up my precious bread, cookies, brownies, donuts, noodles, crackers, root beer... I swear the list is as tall as I am. But I did it. And surprisingly enough, the change was dramatic. I went from too sick to breathe at times to feeling almost normal. It was crazy. 

Adapting to the lifestyle of a glutanite was probably the hardest part. I ended up losing almost seven pounds the first two weeks alone. (Which, coming from a girl who's 5'6" and 100 lbs, that's not cool.) My diet consisted of corn tortillas with rice and beans, and... well, that's pretty much it. It was just too hard to find much else that didn't have any gluten in it or it wasn't cross contaminated. And I could pretty much forget about going out to eat. 

It was tough. It's been almost a year since I've started this diet, so I've gotten better at being creative with my food to make it gluten free. I'm still sick more than I should be. Last summer at a Steubenville conference, I got sick and passed out at breakfast on Saturday, ending up having to miss one of the most amazing weekends of the year. And then I accidentally ate breaded french fries at my church's fall retreat, so I passed out again there. (But seriously, who puts BREADING on FRENCH FRIES?! That's got to be a mortal sin.) I've pretty much developed a bad habit of passing out when I don't feel well. That's bad. Especially since I want to go to Steubenville San Diego this summer. I'm still trying to convince my mom to let me go. St. Valentine, pray for us! 
But feeling sick so much and giving up all gluten in my diet has also helped me to see how suffering can be beautiful.  It's been a hard thing to go through, but I know that God won't give me anything that I can't handle. I've learned to  see His great Beauty especially amidst the suffering. I'm actually really, really excited for Lent to start this year.