S.O.L.

I have been accused of a lot of things in my life but a lack of character has never been one of them. I attribute my character to an unusual childhood.

You see, back when I was a kid I was diagnosed with a then-rare disorder called celiac that basically meant eating anything with gluten (wheat, oats, barley, rye) in it would destroy my immune system. I know, I know, as my old senior chief in the Navy would've said, "My heart pumps piss for ya babe, now get on with it..."

Of course, back in the '70's nothing was labeled and almost everything you eat has gluten in it so I was always sick and malnourished. This led to me being a scrawny little runt with a big, bloated Ethiopian-poster-child style belly. Add to that my abnormally long and protruding belly button, the flatulence that comes along with bloating due to malnutrition, and being the kid who could only eat carrot sticks and all beef hot dogs and you can imagine the daily razzing I endured. In fact, it was a sport in the nieghborhood - here's a photo of a photo of me being laughed at by all the kids in the trailer park circa 1976:

I'm the small one with the head hung in shame. See the belly? Protruding navel? Scrawny, pale arms? My siblings are the barefooted kids in highwaters laughing hardest. Note that all the kids are looking at me and laughing. That's because they just made fun of me. Even more disturbing? Some adult condoned this and took a picture. Today this would be child abuse. Back then it was character building and entertainment.

Fortunately I outgrew the problem at age 12, my giant belly deflated, and I was able to resume normal eating habits. I even had my belly button cosmetically enhanced during surgery already scheduled for that year. Oh yeah, the doctors decided I would make a nice lab rat back then and twice performed unnecessary exploratory surgeries on me to see what was going on in there. My innards are even in the New England Journal of Medicine. No, I didn't retain any rights. I always knew how bad a procedure was going to be by the size of the stuffed animal I got the morning of the hospital visit. The worst? The barium enema and large instestine scan at age 8. I knew it was going to be bad when I got one of those stuffed dogs that takes batteries and walks and barks. Then I saw that big tube with a camera on the end and knew it could only go a couple of places - none of them appealing.

All that excitement as a kid left me terrified of all things medical and ever since I've had extreme anxiety around any sort of doctor. I pass out in doctors' offices all the time. Two years ago I even passed out at the optometrist's office. No kidding. Needless to say, I don't visit the doctor unless I know there's something wrong and feel I am be on the brink of death (drove myself to doctor with burst appendix a few years ago - was sure it was food poisoning and would go away on its own - my final words to the anesthesiologist were "is this really necessary?").

So the past few months I've been having some health problems and consciously overlooking them. The human body is incredibly resilient and most ailments will subside on their own. But, even I know when something's not getting better and the symptoms I've been having seemed only to be getting worse lately. The kicker was during my Alaska trip when I ate a couple of handfuls of barley from the bin at the brewery...The next day I was doubled over in pain in Seattle airport, nearly passed out, barely able to make my connection. That's when it dawned on me that my symptoms were similar to the good old days of my childhood.

I immediately went online to research my old disease. Sure enough, they've done tons of reasearch in the last 20 years and there were lots of websites full of information. One thing I discovered was that the disease is actually a genetic autoimmune disorder that never goes away - it just goes into remission and then comes back when you're in your 30's or 40's. Here I thought I'd banked all that illness credit as a kid and would sail through my adulthood living longer than I wanted with no major problems.

After gathering a wealth of information, speaking with someone who organizes a support group for folks with the problem (sounds fun...), and learning about how to test for it, I made an appointment, had some blood drawn (passing out as usual), and had my doctor order the battery of tests associated with it last week.

So my doctor called Tuesday with preliminary results and informed me I have serious vitamin deficiencies that have thrown my red blood cell count all out of whack and that I should not be up and about and that I will be the lucky recipient of my own daily course of vitamin injections that I will have to administer myself. Figuring I knew more than her, I challenged her prescription only to be told that my system has just plain stopped absorbing certain nutrients on its own and the only way to get them is by shooting up every day.

Needless to say, I am not too pleased about the shots. I have since avoided picking up the prescription and going in for instruction on needle use and disposal and now the doctor has been calling every day. I'm pretty sure she'll be getting a court order for me soon.

In addition to the daily poke, I will likely be ordered to start the terrible gluten-free diet as soon as the other lab work is back in a couple of weeks. Tragically, this means NO MORE BEER. So now I get to give myself a shot a day, not drink beer, and eat carrot sticks and rice cakes for the rest of my life.

Alas, there is hope because there are others out there like me. I even found this link to a dating service specifically for folks like me. I did a search and there was one man in San Antonio, Texas in my age group. Imagine all the poo bags this dating pool will have. Actually, I had to laugh at the irony that would occur if I had to get a poo bag. You have to admit it would be funny. I asked about it and my doctor advised poo bags don't work for the small intestine so I guess I'm s*** outta luck on that one.

Really, it's not all that bad and I just wanted to show you all that nice picture of everyone making fun of me as a kid. I'm done wanking and I promise not to turn into this girl who has decided her life is over because of the disorder.