CRASH DAY

After realizing I definitely needed to do something about all of this, I started looking on the internet of the ways and steps others had gone before me. It dawned on me about half way through this voyage that my life was going to change drastically. I got despondent quickly.

Several years before 5 friends and I went to China. One of the friends had CD (celiac disease). She made our life miserable. She packed as much food as she couldn't carry (most of us were carrying it for her). In helping her we realized that she didn't have enough carbohydrates in her system for any strength or energy. Most prepackaged carbs have wheat in them. She was paper thin.

When as a group we were out for the day we would stop for meals and our tour guide was driven crazy by her demands and nervousness of what she could and couldn't eat. We finally got to Hong Kong and we didn't have our tour guide with us. After four restaurants and an hour of looking for the right restaurant, four tourists became very angry about her CD. I finally said to her "can't you have a salad," and she came back on me saying that "the salad dressing has wheat in it." I thought you would appreciate it better if you don't have the dressing, so of course I snapped back at her and told her to have vinegar and oil with her salad. End of conversation. How soon would I realize that would not be the end of MY conversation.

But after looking on the internet, and everyone else's stories regarding CD, I realized why this lady was so ornery. While I was looking on the internet a friend of mine came up to me and asked how it was going, and I just snapped, "it's not going good and it will never be good again." I told her that I didn't want to be like my friend and make everyone else's lives miserable in being around me. That CD should not be a topic in every conversation. I wanted to go to a restaurant and ordered without everyone looking at me like a freak. I am not a freak. I told her that I had been out with friends the night before and when we went to order, not only was I concerned but then I had to go through almost every item on the menu with my friends of why I couldn't eat that particular item. It was painstakingly miserable. I told my husband that night I will soon make this a non-conversation in our lives. I don't know how, but I will.