So I was diagnosed with Celiac last November. It's been a bit of a dietary adventure since then. My one standing complaint about this condition is that, thus far, "modern medicine" has no clue what to do with it. My experience has been that after months of testing for this or that they finally figure out what test they should run and then they say, "Oh, hey! Look at this! You're a Celiac! We have no clue what to do with this. Stay away from gluten. Here's pamphlet. Good luck!"
So basically you walk out of there feeling like hell, at the bare minimum knowing you can't eat bread or drink beer, and the rest is trial and error. At some point on your path you start running into other Celiacs who tell you to try this and stay away from that, and even further down the road you start listening to homeopaths, naturopaths, vegans, greenies, hippies, conspiracy theorists, and people who claim to be aliens because, well, they're apparently all Celiacs too. The next thing you know you're telling yourself that if you can do a shot of cheap tequila you can certainly drink this mixture of organic grapefruit juice, extra virgin olive oil, and Epsom salts in an attempt to heal your ailing intestinal tract. (and yes, I did drink that shit)
Anyway, I'd had this great run of almost three months without a gluten attack because I either prepared all of my own meals or I insisted on eating where I knew I would be safe. But (and this is a resounding BUT) there is that one lady (who will remain anonymous) that is a somewhat regular appearance in my life and despite her "knowing" I'm a Celiac and despite her attempts to prepare gluten free meals for me, 9 times out of 10 I get ill every time I eat something she prepares. And after three months of no trouble, I ate one of her dishes and late that evening I could feel it coming on, and the next day was a wash (if one can consider somewhere between my bed and the bathroom a "wash").
I got pretty depressed over this because I'd been doing so well. And after a few days of ranting (and swearing that the next time I go to her place I'm going to eat nothing but lettuce leaves, sans dressing, and a glass of wine), I remembered that the same guy that sent me the crazy grapefruit juice elixir had attached something called The Master Cleanse -- a ten day detox that is supposed to clean out all of your internal organs, heal your allergies, heal your illnesses, and bla bla bla and so forth. The trick is you can do nothing but drink this crazy lemon juice concoction and some tea (and you all know how I feel about tea). No food... no coffee... no wine... none of the things that make Pandora tick, basically. But I was so depressed I had completely convinced myself that this Master Cleanse was a good idea.
On the morning of day three I found myself sitting in a meeting with one of the local Cities. The last time I had my dose of the stupid lemon juice was 9:00 a.m. and it was 10:00 a.m. when the meeting started. Within the first ten minutes of that meeting my intestines started to cramp up, indicating it was time to visit the bathroom (AGAIN), so I had to excuse myself from the meeting (which I never do) and go "release some toxins."
At about 10:30 I started feeling hungry (the thing with the lemon juice is I had to drink it every two hours or I would get really mean and grumpy due to out of control hunger), but there was nothing I could do in the midst of that stupid meeting. My hunger grew to unmanageable levels until the meeting came to a close and left me with a 30 minute drive back to the office.
As I was walking out of the building, one of the ladies asked if I was feeling okay because I "looked kind of green in there" and all I could do was fake a smile and tell her I wasn't quite up to snuff. (What was I going to do? Tell her I brought this on myself because I'm on the path to healing via starvation, lemon juice, Cayenne pepper, and some "Smooth Move" tea?) And as I sat in the back of the car we drove in, this other lady went on and on about this congressional act and that congressional act and my brain kept slipping in and out of consciousness and every once in a while I'd snap back in long enough to realize she was still looking into my dead eyes as she was talking to me, but all I could think about was how good that chicken was going to be when I cooked it for Hope's dinner and that I wouldn't be able to eat it with her. And then I started thinking about salad and how I would give anything for a stupid salad. And then I started thinking about chewing and how good it would be to chew something. And then I started thinking about my taste buds and how good it would be to taste something. And by the time we got back to the office I couldn't take it anymore! I didn't want to drink that stupid lemon juice!
"LEMON JUICE BE DAMNED!!! I'm having a salad!!!"
And that's what I did. I went down to the cafeteria and I made a salad and I ate it.
I had 7 more days to go and between the constant bathroom journeys and the lack of pleasure to my palate, I just couldn't do it anymore. I'd rather endure an Epsom salt enema than drink lemon juice for ten days straight!
How do people do this shit? These things may be effective, but who can do them and still have a smile on their face? Maybe these people will live to be healthy and functioning and 120 years of age, but I'm sorry... this is some seriously miserable shit here! (literally) And I don't give a crap about living to be a ripe and healthy 120 years old! I have no desire to live that long! Despite the happy moments here and there, life on Earth is a struggle and a somewhat miserable existence anyway! ...wars that have no real purpose and no solid end; the Cloward & Piven plan is destroying capitalism (as well as the vast majority of people who don't read, think, or do for themselves); the homeless people don't get to take a shower in their traveling shower power machine because the mayor used up their time slot with his photo op; Windmill Dick is down there making a living on camera while his kid is sending someone to the morgue via baseball bat bludgeoning; teachers are prostituting themselves for paid vacation time and the principal is skimming off the top of their tip money; my daughter's friends are either Team Jacob or Team Edward while maintaining a crush on some kid named Justin Beiber; there's a rapist in Lincoln Park and a crazy hippy in Yellowstone receiving messages from the Universe through rainbows; there are aliens implanting probes in all of us; and the government controls our minds by the contrails from US Airways. Why should I bother? So the anonymous lady kills me slowly with her rice pilaf, who gives a rip? The answer isn't in the lemon juice! The simple answer to it all my dear friends is this:
EAT DRINK AND BE MERRY!!!
(stay away from gluten though)
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