Jeeva Anna George - A Gluten-Free Life: My Celiac Story

A Gluten-free Life

MY CELIAC STORY

JEEVA ANNA GEORGE

with

SHEILA KUMAR

Contents

L ike most stories, this one, my own story, has a hero, a villain and a few very supportive sidekicks. And to bring youthe readerto the place where I am today, I first need to do the old look-back exercise. So bear with me. Who knows, you might well pick up a tip or two as we go along, you and I.

Dont be alarmedthis look-back wont go back to my infant days! Ironically, truth be told, I was always the kind of child who did not fall sick too often, other than the odd cough and cold. In fact, it was only in college that I can recall actually falling quite ill with amoebic dysentery, which was bad. Thereafter, I never fell majorly ill, and there had been nothing too serious. It was a good lifeone I took for granted as one does so many of the good things in ones life.

Life lesson: Never ever take anything thats going good for granted. Who knows how long it will last?

The fact that I seemed to be in rude health was a matter of much gratification to me, primarily because I do not like hospitals, medicines and syringesthe whole affair. Call me a scaredy-cat but I really dreaded the odd vaccination I had to take at school (I did my early schooling at The Indian School in Kuwait) or the stray injection one was forced to suffer during those one-off medical tests one had to take. This antipathy included medicines too. I used to be, and still remain, one of those people who find swallowing a tablet or capsule inexplicably difficult. Much water has flowed down that particular bridge, but even now I do not think I have perfected that art. What can I say? I am just not someone who will guzzle medicines merrily.

After I passed out of school, I was an undergrad at Stella Maris College in Chennai, and eventually went off to the UK to pursue my Masters in Economics, as well as International Economics at the University of Nottingham. During those days, the world was mine to conquer. I still remember my airy response to the standard question whether I had any medical problems to report, during the prepping and putting together papers for the stint. Nope, I would reply cheerily, no allergies, no nothing. Zip. Nada.

If my unseen guardian angel was coughing nervously somewhere above, well, I did not hear her or heed her. I was tempting fate, of course. The turnabout was gradual, so gradual that I didnt notice it at first.

After garnering university education and with a degree in hand, I moved to Bangalore for work and started a new life. I worked for a national industry body, handling the Economic Affairs & Public Policy Desk, and also assisted some national committees on various areas ranging from MNCs to family businesses and the media for the Bangalore office. My work involved a lot of research, going through policy documents, studying industry trends and a separate area of technical conference management.

I am the quiet sort; more than partying madly, music and quiz events were my idea of a fun time. In fact, at Stella Maris College, I had been the president of the Quiz, Debate and Current Affairs Club. I made some good friends, both males and females in Bangalore, and generally settled down into a happy life. All was good, then.

But the trouble had started, at another levelthe physical level. It was during this time that I found myself falling sick often, mainly with stomach-related problems. It kept happening with almost routine regularity but I refused to let these episodes faze me. I put it down to bad (and frequent) bouts of food poisoning, water or even the quick-change nature of Bangalore weather. I mean, these were not the things to fret about, not if you were otherwise as healthy as the proverbial horse.

Then again, something good happened before the deluge, as it were. I met and married Deepak Abraham in April of 2009. It was the old chestnut about Bangalore coming true, that in Bangalore, if you throw a stone you invariably hit a techie, i.e., a software engineer, before you hit a dog. My husband is a techie and works for an MNC which deals in storage solutions, and we had been friends for a while before we decided to get married. I remember my marriage as a time of new hopes and aspirations, a bend in the road. Now, looking back, I can tell you with some satisfaction, dear reader, that I couldnt have chosen a better helpmeet. Deepak is a very supportive man, even more when it comes to my celiac condition. Formerly, a person who did not know or care to know much about food and ingredients at all, he has grown to understand what food products are safe for me, how he can avoid cross-contamination, and everything else that is part of the turf for us. He also reads labels diligently.

Workplace Transformation

Let me try and peg down the dates. I remember, in late August of 2009, I had frequent bouts of diarrhoea, which went away after a few days. I would go out for a casual pizza, and almost afterwards, start to feel awful. I would begin to itch all over, and this was not something one normally associates with a bad stomach. However, due to two parts ignorance and one part optimism, I was still making excuses for the ill-health episodes. On most days, I would tell myself it was because I had had a long day and needed rest and a hot shower.

In retrospect, those pizzas were the early warning system doing its work, acting both as culprit and cause, as well as the beacon that shone a light on my condition. If I had had the smarts to open my eyes and see, that is.

Soon the diarrhoea bouts became more frequent and would last for many days. Initially, I would take some over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, and more often than not, it would right itself. But there were the times when it used to be really bad, when none of the OTC drugs were of any help. I went to doctors and underwent tests but all my results came up vague. They all seemed to be okay and none pointed to anything that aroused suspicion or called for further investigation. I was back at square one: it was put down to something I ate which just did not agree with me. The problem was not keeping me up nights but yes, there was a niggling worry unfurling deep inside me.

Life lesson: Its the old trope: Never ignore what your gut, or your instinct, is trying hard to tell you. Believe meyou ignore it at your own peril.

And so, that was the life I lived in those days: Id turn in what was seen as good work; Id go out with my family and friends; Id catch a movie and Id medicate myself for that medical problem. But the tummy bug kept biting, taking me down for days at a time. Now the specialists suspected that I was probably suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and as there really is no cure for it, I was told to keep a watch on what I was eating, so I would know what to eat and what to avoid. My subconscious absorbed that it was about control, not cure, then. This of course, led to a fresh dose of medicines. My stomach did not give me any more troublefor the time being. There were concurrent troubles too. One just cannot keep feeling below the weather and still be happy, cheerful and optimistic. As these incidents kept happening, I gradually went from being a happy girl to a reserved quiet girl and then to a very unhappy girl. I was constantly feeling tired, depressed, and most alarmingly, I noticed that I sometimes experienced short flashes of memory loss.