the gluten free garage muse
Lily turned 6! It’s been 3 years since her celiac diagnosis. When we went for her 6-year checkup the other day we found out that she’s in the 75th percentile for weight and height! You’ve come a long way baby!
In December 2009, over the holidays, Lily woke up sick every night for about a week, throwing up literally everything in her stomach. The stomach flu was
going around and so that’s what we first thought. But during the days Lily was fine. So we ruled that out and took her to the doctor. Dr. P. thought she might have acid reflux and wrote out a prescription. That night Lily threw up again and I just knew it wasn’t acid reflux. We went back to the doctor the next day and he ran some blood tests, including one for celiac disease. He said he thought that could be the problem and he needed our permission to do the test because it cost money.
When Dr. P. called a few days later to say that the results of Lily’s blood test were back and she had celiac, we didn’t know too much about it. That night Rob and I each on our own laptops spent hours googling and researching and reading aloud to each other. That weekend we swept our kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer clean of all gluten. If Lily couldn’t eat certain foods, we didn’t want to have them in the house, for several reasons. With her celiac diagnosis, now we’d have to say no to her about eating these certain foods and we
wanted our home to be a place where she can eat everything and anything. Also, we didn’t want to risk cross contamination or the possibility of her
unknowingly eating something with gluten.
And so we began our gluten-free journey. Within weeks Lily started to grow and thrive and before we knew it she was exploding into herself. The dark
circles under her eyes disappeared. Her skinny arms and legs started filling out and getting stronger. Her big round distended belly was shrinking. She finally had a bum! Lily was born with a huge personality and now physically she was blossoming before our eyes.
And now she’s a force, a free spirit, who bolts out of bed every morning, who loves to bust a move, who swims like a fish, who just learned how to swing on the monkey bars, who has such a zest for life. She’s a happy 6-year-old gluten-free girl.
