No More Breakfast of Champions

Whew!

It's been a while.

More than a while.

But I got the job!

So I'm working full time now, in addition to the housekeeping and babysitting gigs.

And school.

So I've been even more busy than usual.

Yay......

But, surprisingly enough, that is not the biggest news as of late.

I've been having random, annoying medical issues for the past few months.

Overheating, stomach pains, and nausea at night before bed.

Stomach pains and nausea after eating.

Random bowel issues I won't go into.

So I finally saw a doctor and the consensus is......

Drumrollllllll, pleaseeeee.....

Well there isn't one.

He's doing a metric ass ton of blood tests to check me for a myriad of problems.

I feel like I'm on a twisted game show.

Throwing darts on a spinning wheel to see what terrible diagnosis I'll get.

It could be HYPOTHYROIDISM!

Or even HYPOPITUITARISM!

Or possibly GALLSTONES!

But the stomach issues, at least, are most likely caused by CELIAC DISEASE!

Fuck yeah, gluten intolerance!

The one thing on the list that there aren't accurate tests for, just my luck.

The only real way to find out - short of slicing out a piece of my small intestine and doing a biopsy, which even then isn't totally accurate because it only tests for inflammation without regards to the cause - is to put me on a totally gluten-free diet for at least four weeks and see if my symptoms clear up.

No magic pills here.

Just shitty tasting rice bread and bland food from vegetarian restaurants.

Don't get me wrong, I like health foods.

I love shopping at Whole Foods, I'm a proud soy milk drinker, and vegan/vegetarian restaurants are right up my alley.

BUT HOLY FUCKING GOD.

My diet for the past two days has been miserable meal after meal of blandness.

It's also been incredibly healthy.

Considering I can't suck down carbs like the out of control glutton that I am, I've been eating much more fruits and vegetables.

Salads even!

Though, salads are tricky.

Half of our damn salad dressings contained gluten, so I had to carefully go through the ingredient lists on each one and label the safe dressings.

Thank you maltodextrin, dextrin, and modified food starch.

You make life easy, donchya!

This is going to be a long and tedious four weeks, not to mention expensive.

I spent $5 on a loaf of gluten-free bread, the cheapest one they had at Whole Foods, only to come home and make a sandwich and realize that they were passing off compressed sawdust for bread.

Worst. Sandwich. Ever.

I've even tried dining at vegan restaurants around my office for lunch, only to find out that all of their gluten-free options are a fucking joke.

Java's Famous Quinoa Salad, my ass.

Sounds great on the menu, but once you're sitting in front of probably a pound of quinoa with sparse bits of tomato, avacado, and feta, you realize that, not only will you never in a million years be able to eat that much grain, but that when they say Quinoa Salad they just mean Quinoa.

Even the basalmic-esque dressing it came with couldn't make it palatable enough for me to finish.

Or enjoy.

So I tried the other vegan/health food restaurant around the corner - yeah, it's a good area to work if you don't eat meat - and I tried their gluten-free salmon patty.

I'm beginning to notice a trend in these gluten-free foods.

It's called, "Well we know this one ingredient is gluten-free, so let's make a dish with exclusively that and slap the word 'patty' or 'salad' on the end to make people think there's more to it."

I'm a salmon patty kind of person.

I'm not a salmon shaped in a patty kind of person.

I would like some veganaise, celery, carrots, and pickle relish, thank you very much.

It should not taste like I'm biting into the side of a fish.

The only reprieve I've found in the world of gluten-free substitutions for normal food is this:

Deliciousness!

It tastes like actual pizza!

And it avoids that ever-present conundrum of all gluten-free prepared foods also being vegan or vegetarian.

I like eating veggie, yes, but sometimes you just really crave some chicken or cheese.

Or, in my case, chicken and cheese.

And barbecue sauce.

On a pizza.

I was afraid that this, too, would be a disappointment, and maybe it's been the restrictive diet the past couple of days, but this pizza was amazing.

It was like it was telling me that the Celiac world isn't all bad and that there are some glimmering food masterpieces to be found.

Now it's just a waiting game.

Waiting on this four weeks to be over to see if there's any change.

Waiting for the test results to come back to see if there's anything else wrong with me.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

A bientôt, lovelies.

- parisienne.love