Where to Begin?

I’d like to start off by saying a couple things.

Thing One: I am not a dietitian/nutritionist. As much I would love to be, I am unfortunately not made of money and for the time being, one degree in English will have to suffice. I’m not giving up on that dream though…just putting it on hold for a bit.

Thing Two: I’m learning as I go, so bear with me at times.

It’s difficult to say where to begin with this story, but some sort of background is definitely in order.

Mike and I met in January, 2011. At the time, I was a first year student at Arizona State University working towards my English degree I mentioned earlier. Mike was…not really doing all that great. Diagnosed with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at 12 years old, he suffered debilitating fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, malnutrition, rheumatoid arthritis, IBS…the list could go on. Because of his ill health, Mike couldn’t attend school because he was rarely well enough to go, and on days when he was well enough to exert energy, he paid for it in the days and sometimes weeks following.

I should also mention that we met online and that I lived in Arizona whilst he was in England with 5,000 miles separating the two of us.

All roadblocks aside (literally), our friendship quickly developed into something much more. After about a month of chatting with Mike, I knew that one way or another things were going to work out and we would be together. Our long messages back and forth turned into Skype chats, which turned into Skype calls, which turned into video chats, which eventually resulted in Mike’s first trip to Arizona 10 months later to finally meet in person. In retrospect, it’s amazing and probably a bit stupid that he was able to make that journey to Arizona given his health. He certainly paid for it after returning back to England, but what else can you do when you’re young and in love?

Now here I am, four years later living in Sheffield, England married to my best friend. Our story has never been easy, but the end has always been clear: the two of us together, happy and healthy. We have the first two parts of that last statement worked out, but now it’s time to really figure out that last bit: his health. The summer of 2013, one major part of the puzzle that is his health revealed itself. After a stupid amount of years with CFS/ME as his only real diagnosis, Mike was diagnosed with Coeliac Disease. His body was recognizing the gluten he was eating as a threat and began attacking itself causing symptoms like: debilitating fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, malnutrition, rheumatoid arthritis, IBS…sound familiar? At first, we asked ourselves how it was possible that eating the wrong food can cause so much damage to his body. Thinking about it more, we realized, of course eating the wrong food will cause damage to his body. Food gives life, food will take away life. And it has done that for about 10 years of his life.

Unfortunately, simply eliminating gluten from his diet wasn’t enough to overcome the years of damage his body underwent. I should mention, that Mike was frighteningly underweight and his muscles severely deconditioned due to years of inactivity. In order to pack on the pounds, Mike was advised to eat other grain substitutes, carbohydrates (he was a seven potato a day kind of guy for a while there), and basically anything that was calorific and gluten free. Though it helped to eventually put on the weight, the increase of the wrong type of food only made Mike feel worse than he had when he was eating too few calories a day with gluten.

I’ve been living in Sheffield now for about five months since I moved here in August. In the time that I have been here, I’ve been to more doctors’ appointments with Mike than I can ever remember myself going to my entire life (though free health care might also factor into that). We saw more specialists than we went out on dates, more blood tests than nights out with friends. Going out meant going to the doctor only to be referred to another doctor.

Well, I’ve decided that I’m done with waiting rooms. I’m done seeing my husband struggle to go to the store, or play darts, or be a 24 years old man. I know that there is more to life than prescription drugs, and I know that what he eats has just as much power to heal as it does to hurt. For the past year, we have talked about adopting a healthier lifestyle, eating whole foods and grass fed animals while cutting out processed food-like food. The past several months we’ve slowly transitioned into the life, researching web page after web page saying why we should ditch not just gluten, but other grains, refined sugars, dairy (my heart weeps over that one). These past few weeks I’ve been especially careful with what I’ve fed Mike (he’s not well enough to cook for himself very often, and his new PoTS diagnosis is largely to blame) and he’s been more active than he’s been in years. Now that we aren’t in such a mad rush to put on the weight (he finally weighs more than me *happy dance*), we can worry less about the quantity and more about the quality of food that goes in. It wasn’t until one morning last week as I sat at the kitchen table peeling the skin off the almonds I soaked over night for a grain free granola recipe that I realized just how granola I had become.

So I am starting this blog to document our progress – because I know there will be progress. Though I can’t afford to go back to school just yet, I still want to learn about nutrition and the importance of what we put in our body. Also, I really love to cook and I want a place to show off my baked goods because who doesn’t love a good food blog. I also want to share any success we might have with anyone else who finds themselves or a loved one suffering from Coeliac Disease, PoTS, Arthritis, M.E, and possibly Ehler Danlos….And also, I just really love to bake, so…