Take the Good With the Bad

May 2012

If you recall from the last post, I had just finished 10th grade. I was still struggling with constant nausea and a burning sensation in my stomach. My pediatrician told me to give it a week (in case it was just a virus) and then call my pediatric GI doctor. While waiting for a week to pass, my mom and grandpa had been doing some looking online. They discovered a book written by someone with IBS who had similar symptoms. The author had come up with an IBS diet, and it helped her get back on her feet. However, this diet would restrict me even more. In addition to avoiding gluten and dairy, I would have to stop eating foods that were high in fat (coconut and avocados), foods that were irritating to the stomach (caffeine, carbonated drinks, chocolate, honey, and sorbitol-an artificial sweetener), and red meat since it was hard to digest. I had also stopped eating bananas since they are very constipating. The author of this book suggested drinking cranberry juice (and absolutely nothing else!) with breakfast first thing in the morning. She also suggested staying away from icy cold drinks in the morning. I was willing to try anything at this point so I started the IBS friendly diet.
 After one week had passed, my mom called my GI doctor's nurse, Nurse J. She updated him on all my symptoms, and Nurse J. said he would talk to Dr. Di. When Nurse J. called back, he said that Dr. Di was going to put me on lansoprazole.
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Lansoprazole (generic name: prevacid) is a medicine that shuts off the pumps in the stomach that produce acid.
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Having fun camping

Dr. Di thought my stomach was probably inflamed and the acid in my stomach was irritating the inflammation, thus causing the burning feeling. I was prescribed this medicine shortly before Memorial Day, and my family and I were going camping for the long weekend. Last year, I had just been diagnosed with celiac disease and camping gluten-free was a new experience. This year, not only was I gluten-free, but I was also dairy-free and free of the foods I listed above. My mom (who is also a gourmet camp fire chef) cooked delicious meals with delicious alternatives for me! Even though I had to drag two medicines, several supplements (I had started taking a probiotic, peppermint oil capsule, and multivitamin), and my own food....I had a great time camping! My family and I enjoyed hiking, boating, horseback riding, archery, and just sitting around the campfire visiting. My brother's girlfriend, Meghan, was able to come with us this year. I had fun camping, AND I felt well for most of the time! I struggled with some nausea and burning, but I spent most of the time laughing harder than I had in a very long time. Maybe it was because I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. When I was recovering from my surgery (September 2011), I came up with a list of things I was going to do when I felt better. The top two things were: 1) going to Build-A-Bear and making a teddy bear, dress it in hospital scrubs, and name him after my doctors. It may sound like a childish thing to do, but I held on to the hope of getting that bear with my dear life. 2) baking a huge amount of cookies to give to my doctors and their staff. I knew that whoever could get me feeling better would deserve nothing but the best!

Boating

Archery

When we got back from camping, I had high hopes of fulfilling these two things on my wellness bucket list soon. I didn't want to make any plans or get too excited in case something else went wrong. I was done having my hopes crushed. I didn't think anything of the soup our neighbor made us. She had done an excellent job understanding how tricky gluten-free cooking is, and she always made me safe dishes. I can still remember how good that rice soup tasted. There was pork in it, but I just picked it out since I couldn't eat red meat anymore. Shortly after finishing the meal, I was struck by a sensation I had never experienced. By this point, I thought I had experienced every feeling possible: nausea, pain, severe pain, I'm-going-to-puke-any-second nausea, burning, you name it. What was this new feeling? It felt explosive. It's hard to describe, but it felt like there were fireworks exploding in my stomach. No amount of peppermint would fix it. I also noticed that my legs hurt and walking from one room to another was difficult. I prayed and prayed for wisdom to figure out what was causing this new sensation. I felt fine before I ate the delicious rice soup, but after I ate it I had an explosive stomach, achy legs, headache, and I was exhausted. Any guesses? Yep, I had just been contaminated with gluten.

TO BE CONTINUED......