Going Gluten Free

We've had a lot going on this month & unfortunately, I am talking about more than Covid-19. For the past couple of months, Sadie has been complaining quite a bit about her stomach hurting. All the time. I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but from the best of my memory, I believe it was around the holidays. And to be honest, I kind of blew her off because it was the holidays. Everyone was eating more than we should & it wasn't always the healthiest during the holidays, right?! 

Fast forward to January & she is starting to complain more. She started going to the nurse a lot at school because her stomach hurts so bad, she is having digestive issues, she is tired, etc. Finally, one Friday night we are at dinner at a restaurant with friends & she just started crying. And then I knew - she wasn't exaggerating anymore, I think something is wrong. So I emailed her doctor that weekend, started a food journal & removed dairy from her diet. She had a dairy intolerance as a baby until she was around 2 1/2 so my gut told me maybe dairy was bothering her again. I knew she didn't have any food allergies but something was bothering her digestive system. A few weeks later, she was still having problems so instead of going into our pediatrician, I went straight to a pediatric GI doctor recommended from our pediatrician. 

By this time, it was mid February. We loved the GI doctor & she said it could possibly be dairy but she wanted to run a blood test just in case. I guess she had a feeling based on our initial consultation with with Sadie. So that same day, I took her to get a blood draw & wasn't expecting to hear anything for a week or so. I should have known they found something when I got a phone call 2 days later. Her blood test confirmed that she had celiac disease. What?! This came out of no where & I had no idea. We have no family history of food allergies or sensitivities to my knowledge. The blood test is usually pretty accurate, but an official diagnosis cannot be made until they perform a biopsy, so one week later at 6:00 in the morning, she & I were at the surgery center for her endoscopy:

Thankfully she just had surgery in the fall so she wasn't as nervous or scared. They put her under anesthesia, ran a scope down her throat & took pictures & pulled tissue from her esophagus, stomach, small & large intestine. We got pictures of everything as well. She handled the procedure like a champ:

Two days later we got the call I expected - all of the biopsies confirmed that she officially had celiac disease. I didn't know exactly what that meant or what to do, but her doctor told us over the phone going forward she could not have any gluten or dairy. Starting now. Whoa - that was a lot to handle. Thankfully, her endoscopy was on Thursday, we got results on Monday & by Tuesday morning the 3 of us (Bryan, Sadie & I) were sitting back in her office. We had a long 2 hour appointment with her doctor & she explained everything - what celiac is, where it came from, how we manage it. Long story, but basically celiac is an auto-immune disease & it is hereditary.  She was not born with it, but she obviously carried the markers for it & something recently triggered it. That's why she had felt so bad lately & lost a lot of weight. It is a life long disease & will never go away. It cannot be managed with medicine, but can be managed by her diet. In her case, no gluten. At all. Not even the tiniest particle. And as of right now, no dairy either. We left her appointment that day & went straight to a bakery in town call Unrefined:

I have always heard of it but we had never been there. They are super clean & everything in there is vegan, gluten free, dairy free - whatever you need. We met the owner, got a tour of the bakery, got to sample a lot of the bread & then had lunch. It was a fun way to show Sadie that she still had options out there even though her life was about to change!

Two days later, we were on a plane for Hawaii. Not exactly ideal. We had heard stories about how hard it is to travel & eat at restaurants when you are gluten free & we were new to this life style. So I spent most of our vacation studying celiac & living gluten free. I found a lot of websites, read a 400 page book, pinned new recipes - our whole lifestyle was suddenly needing to change:

But honestly, we were pleasantly surprised how we were able to manage it. Luckily I had a few app recommendations that helped manage restaurant & food selections. We stayed at an Embassy Suites who provided free breakfast every morning & look what we found:

They even had an omelette station where we could have fresh eggs made for her every morning without the fear of cross contamination. I was honestly shocked!

Most restaurants were a bit of a challenge. We had to ask for a gluten free menu or speak to the server, chef, whoever was knowledgeable at every single restaurant. And there were several restaurants that couldn't accommodate us, but then there were a lot who could. The best part of this trip was Disney. They are amazing with food allergies! Everything is labeled, they have options for everyone & the chef was always ready & willing to come & speak to us:

She loved the character breakfast. That was one of the times we met the chef & he walked us through the buffet line to let her know exactly what she could & could not have. And what she couldn't have, he made her in the back - like these Mickey Waffles. Who knew he could make them dairy & gluten free!

She also discovered a vegan Mickey Mouse brownie that she could have that she loved:

She may have ordered that several times!

At dinner one night she actually got to have a bite of my birthday cake since it was a flourless chocolate cake:

She can't have ice cream, but she can have sorbet! So she had a lot of fresh fruit sorbet on our trip. And remember that Dole Whip we had at the pineapple plantation?

Yep - dairy & gluten free!

Shaved ice?

Yes m'am! She could have that too :) In fact, I was super impressed when we went to Matsumoto's Shaved Iced in Haleiwa:

And she even found a few things she liked at the Macadamia Nut Farm that she could have:

So here we are. We have been home from vacation for 1 1/2 weeks & we are now a gluten free household. As soon as we got home, I cleaned out the pantry, the spice rack, the fridge, the freezer & her bathroom. I got rid of all of the gluten in our house & I made several shopping trips to different stores stocking up on new gluten free ingredients. It is very easy to cross contaminate with gluten so it's easier just to remove it from the house. And we are trying to encourage her as much as possible by eating the same diet as her. There are a few changes around our house - we bought a new toaster that is labeled as gluten free & we will be very particular about what goes in it. We had our grilled cleaned outside to remove all of the old particles. And I have a sheet posted on our pantry door with a list of the ingredients she cannot have. Life has definitely changed in the Dodson household but she is already feeling so much better & it has only been 3 weeks. 

Since it is a hereditary disease, we had Sophie tested right away, before we flew out of town. The good news is she does not have celiac diesease (which didn't surprise me) but we had genetic testing done & she does carry the markers so she is susceptible to getting it at any time:

I have read a lot about siblings & I don't want her to feel punished or left out if we make her eat gluten free, so I am hoping we can maintain a gluten free diet at home, but she will resume a normal diet outside of the house. Hopefully she can still buy her lunch at school, eat whatever she wants at birthday parties, restaurants, etc. We are also waiting on blood screenings for Bryan & I. I doubt either of us have it, but would love to know if either of us carry the markers. I am super curious to see what side of the family this came from.

Sorry this was a long blog, but it is something I have been wanting to share. If not for anyone else, but for me. I like to document our journeys like this so I can go back & look at them. It has definitely been a learning experience for us all & I am still nervous about it, especially baking, but I think in the end it will definitely make us healthier.