One of the many things that happened during my 9 month blogging hiatus was that Little Sister's health problems finally
received a real diagnosis. If you've been a long time reader, you may remember
my royal freak out in October of 2006 followed by
the diagnosis. This diagnosis turned out to be wrong-- the medication didn't help and she continued to have trouble. When we moved to Arizona, we went to see a new pediatric
gastroenterologist and he did another
colonoscopy and endoscopy on Sidney. He mentioned
Celiac Disease, but doubted that was really it since she does not fit the typical physical mold for a child with
Celiac (small, thin, etc). We learned that this disease is difficult to diagnose in children under 2 (thus the reason for the wrong diagnosis the first go around).
My reaction was less than pretty. I called my mother-in-law to tell her the news and burst into tears and could barely speak. Going Gluten-Free seemed incredibly daunting and all but impossible. Little Sister
existed on gluten foods! But we did it. And guess what? It hasn't been all that bad! I've learned to find hidden gluten by reading labels carefully and have learned to cook pretty well gluten-free (
GF). I don't feel like Sidney misses out on much. I make delicious
GF brownies, corn bread, cakes, muffins & cookies and I can buy delicious
GF pretzels, cookies, bread, crackers, pastas, etc. In this day and age, going gluten-free isn't so bad. The hardest part is
restaurants, but even then we've learned how and what to order and she can eat great meals.
Timing is everything, as they say, and this diagnosis couldn't have come at a better time. Twenty years ago, we would have struggled to make meals that we could all eat, eating out would probably have been next to impossible, and we certainly wouldn't have been able to buy any gluten-free baked goods. Now, Gluten-Free is practically the new Low-
Carb.
The LA Times is reporting that it's becoming a popular diet to try for various reasons. I don't care about the reasons, I'm just thrilled about this new trend and hope it continues because it improves Little Sister's (and selfishly, my own) quality of life with more gluten-free options available.
Go Gluten Free----It's the cool thing to do. *wink-wink*
Baby Stella is six months old! Where has the time gone? I can't quite say "she's getting so big!" because she's still so small! At six months, Stella weighs 13 lbs 5oz. In contrast, Taylor was 20 lbs at six months and Sidney was 18 lbs 11 oz at six months.
Baby Stella is six months old! Where has the time gone? I can't quite say "she's getting so big!" because she's still so small! At six months, Stella weighs 13 lbs 5oz. In contrast, Taylor was 20 lbs at six months and Sidney was 18 lbs 11 oz at six months.
