Science Museum, Tinkerbell and Tub Dancing!

Hello again! I wanted to thank everyone that has reached out to me to offer support, advice and recipes to help me along! I really appreciate it. I am doing quite a bit better. It has taken me a couple weeks to start to feel better and now I think it's safe to say that it is all up from here! I have seen a specialized nutritionist and I have an appt in a couple weeks with a GI specialist at Duke to help me out. But so far, I have been off gluten for 2 weeks (with a couple mis-steps!) and am starting to feel much better. Still have a little bit to go - but at least I know I'm going the right direction!

And now back to Olivia's updates. We took her to the science museum last weekend and she had a great time! She loved all the animals and butterflies and bugs. But, every bug or animal that had teeth, she made sure to warn us that they might "bite you!" ha ha!. That's one of her new things - ever since she had a mosquito bite and we told her she had a little bug bite - she now believes that everything will bite!

(ignore my expression in this picture!)

She LOVED the dinosaurs and was so excited to come see them!

We also finished up the summer semester at The Little Gym. Here is a video from her last class. We have already signed her up for the fall semester. She loves her Little Gym!

Then this past weekend I had gotten some free passes to see the new Tinkerbell movie and I invited Sara and Gracie to come along with us. The girls were so excited when it was first starting - they were dancing and yelling "I see Tinkerbell" (yes in the middle of the theatre!) - but it was very cute. Gracie made it about an hour into the movie - Olivia about 10 minutes past that. But I still think it was worth going (especially since it was free!). The girls had fun (until the melt downs) and they even got free posters! This was Olivia's first movie at the theatre and she did pretty good.

Here are some pictures and a video from the movies:

Grant and his guys went out of town this past weekend to do their fantasy football crap . . . uh . . . I mean draft! So Sara and I were on our own with the girls - and we were throwing our friend Harmony a baby shower on Sunday (for her TWINS!) - so my wonderful mom came up to watch the girls while we went to the shower (since our babysitter backed out). Sara and Gracie spent the weekend at our house for the most part so we could make the cake for Harmony and get everything ready. It was a very LOUD and Crazy weekend, but we enjoyed ourselves (and were glad when things settled back down!)

Here's a picture of the girls:

This last video is so funny! Olivia and I were getting ready one morning and I let her "shower" with me (I shower, she bathes at the back of the tub - then I get out to get ready and she plays). I had my radio on and she was having a great time dancing and singing - check it out:

Too cute! Anyway, I'll try to be better about blogging more often now that things are starting to settle down. Until next time - keep in touch!

I've been better . . .

Hello all! I am sorry that my blogging has been so sporadic lately. I wanted to update you all on what has been going on with me (rather than the usual blogging I do about Olivia). I wanted to share what is going on with me so that I can maybe help others out there that may have the same issues that I do without knowing what is really going on.

I have been quite sick lately, and have had some problems for many years now. Many of you know that I have dealt with headaches and migraines for as long as I can remember (as often as having headaches every day) and I have also always had some stomach problems (a sensitive stomach as some call it). I had even been diagnosed with IBS about 10-11 years ago and told to take fiber to control it. Well, that didn't work for me, but because it is such a personal issue, I just dealt with it and figured that it was just IBS and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Anyway, a month or so ago I had a really bad episode of what seemed like food poisoning that sent me to the doctor. They wanted to run some tests on me and after speaking with my doctor and being sent for a pre-op appointment to get a colonoscopy (how fun!), the endoscopy place decided that they wanted to test me for celiac disease after going over my history. It starts as a simple blood test to see if is even possible to have it. That came back "abnormal" - so they wanted to run an upper endoscopy on me, in addition to the *lower* one. Needless to say, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease last Tuesday when I received my results.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have done my research on this (since I knew of it, but not much about it) when they told me my blood work was abnormal for that test. The symptoms fit and I had all but convinced myself that this would ok if it was Celiac Disease because it would explain everything. But it made it no less easy to hear the news that they had confirmed it. I have since done a lot more research, found some contacts at a local support group that have given me some helpful information and have an appointment set up with a nutritionist for next Thursday night.

Celiac Disease (CD) is a hereditary autoimmune disease. When people with CD eat foods that contain gluten, it creates an immune-mediated toxic reaction that causes damage to the small intestine and does not allow food to be properly absorbed. Even small amounts of gluten in foods can affect those with CD and cause health problems. Damage can occur to the small bowel even when there are no symptoms present.

When individuals with CD ingest gluten, the villi, tiny hair-like projections in the small intestine that absorb nutrients from food, are damaged. This is due to an immunological reaction to gluten. Damaged villi do not effectively absorb basic nutrients -- proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and, in some cases, water and bile salts. If CD is left untreated, damage to the small bowel can be chronic and life threatening, causing an increased risk of associated disorders -- both nutritional and immune related

Gluten is the common name for the proteins in specific grains that are harmful to persons with celiac disease. These proteins are found in ALL forms of wheat (including durum, semolina, spelt, kamut, einkorn and faro) and related grains rye, barley and triticale and MUST be eliminated. (Yes, this includes things like cakes, breads, pizza, pasta etc.)

The symptoms of this can vary widely (or you can have none at all), but the main ones to look for are:

Intermittent diarrhea

Abdominal pain

Bloating

Irritability or depression

Anemia

Stomach upset

Joint pain

Muscle cramps

Skin rash

Mouth sores

Dental and bone disorders (such as osteoporosis)

Tingling in the legs and feet (neuropathy)

Headaches/migraines

Nonetheless, this has been and will continue to be a hard transition for me. I am still experiencing some bad moments/episodes and am trying to learn my new lifestyle. I have to completely change my eating habits and eliminate all gluten from my diet and watch out for cross contamination at home and when I am eating out. Not such an easy task given that we live on breads and pastas! But it is getting better all the time as more stores and restaurants are starting to offer Gluten Free options.

I just wanted to share this with everyone so that maybe someone out there can benefit from this (and to give an excuse for my lack of blogging!). If you or someone you know has had *stomach issues* or other related issues for a while and cannot seem to get it figured out, suggest to them to ask their doctor about the possibility of Celiac Disease. A study has shown that 1 in 133 people in the US have this disease but about 97% of them are undiagnosed.

As for now, I am trying to heal and get my new diet/lifestyle figured out. Please keep me in your thoughts and bear with me as my blogging may be fewer and far between for a little bit.