| Redwallcrazy
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Happy birthday Lesley!
Reply #261. Mar 14 10, 8:35 PM
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| lesley153
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Thank you all for your good wishes and gifts!
Deunan, thank you for the beautiful cake. Yum! And Lochalsh, for a sophisticated and thoughtful memento of my conception. Please don't bother with the camcorder. I'll be back in a few days...
**drool** |
Reply #262. Mar 14 10, 8:44 PM
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Squisher 
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Happy Belated Birthday Lesley! Looks like you had some nice virtual gifts, in particular the second one :) Hope you're not too exhausted when you get back ;)
Reply #263. Mar 14 10, 9:03 PM
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MarchHare007
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LOL Lesley! *tears*
Reply #265. Mar 14 10, 10:10 PM
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Professer
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So plealsed you had a good Birthday Lesley you so richly deserve it,I wish i lived nearer so i could have delived the Boquet of flowers i would have bought you personaly.
Reply #266. Mar 15 10, 2:58 AM
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| lesley153
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Thanks, everyone. (((((())))))
Today didn't go quite to plan, which was a shame.
I couldn't sleep, for a change. I dropped off at about 4am and woke up quite abruptly at 7am, too hungry to go back to sleep, so I staggered downstairs for a banana-free smoothie and a bowl of gluten-free breakfast cereal. Yes, it looks like that's what life's going to be like!
Then back to bed and beautiful sleep from 9am. I'm not going out for lunch till 12.30, so I can get a few hours' sleep in. Fast asleep, 10am, ring ring! it's my beloved son, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, telling me to get up and make the most of the sunshine. [groan] I tried to get back to sleep but it was never going to happen.
Friend appeared at 12.30 and she drove us to the pub up the road. It's a lot nicer than the one we went to last week, with a much bigger, better menu. She's telling me all the things I can still eat if I want to avoid or cut down on wheat. No, it's not a choice. I need to avoid gluten. "A little bit of flour won't hurt." Yes it will.
The sandwiches and baguettes and pies and pastries are out. So are foods with sauces which are probably thickened with flour. I order a baked potato with Brie and tomato "melt" and she decides that it sounds like a better bet than fish and chips, so she changes her order. The girl who takes her order has to ask someone how to show one dish twice. "Just put a 2 there."
Five minutes and a smiling waitress comes and puts knives and forks, paper napkins, salt and pepper on the table. "Oh good - I'm starving." She simpers and disappears. 1pm comes and goes - where's the food? No signs of life... it's 1.15 - still no food.
Granted it's my fault that I haven't eaten since 7.30 this morning, but this is silly. If you have the time to sit around while your food is squeezed into Michelin's idea of tortured perfection, you take out a second mortgage and go to Raymond Blanc's Manoir, or Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck. If you want a very quick lunch, you order a potato in a back-street pub. Or, at least, that's the theory. My companion mentioned the 25-minute wait to the waitress. The waitress looked thoughtful, and said "That's not bad."
Yes it is - my stomach had shrunk from the wait, and I was feeling sick and shaky from hunger, so it took me for ever to eat. Then I thought a bit of caffeine was a good idea. Two cups of coffee, hot, strong, bitter, sludgy, almost undrinkable, came with a miniature jug of cold milk. Stood up to go, couldn't move. Had to hold on to chairs on the way out, like a toddler who can nearly walk but not quite. Friend said forget the dentist - you look dreadful - your health is more important.
Got home, let myself in, dropped my key on the floor, couldn't find the strength to pick it up. Cancelled the dental appointment and went to bed. :(
Yesterday was good, and tomorrow will be better. We may have lunch in the Pheasant again, but we'll make sure we have a good lunch before we get there. |
Reply #267. Mar 15 10, 5:31 PM
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guitargoddess
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No baguette or pastries, that's awful! :(
There are lots of gluten-free breads, though, so sandwiches need not be out entirely (well, in a restaurant, yes). You can even make it at home much cheaper than you can buy it in the store. Not sure if this book is available in the UK, but you could have a look at the library for "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day", by Jeff Can't-remember-his-last-name and Zoe Francois. There is a selection of super-easy to make gluten-free breads in there (and I promise their method truly is super simple, I made some of their plain white artisan bread this weekend. No kneading needed!) Some of the 'healthier' loafs require more ingredients though, so perhaps by the time you acquire them all, it would have just been a lot easier to pick up a loaf in the store.
Reply #268. Mar 15 10, 5:45 PM
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redwaldo
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Happy (belated) Birthday, Lesley-you're an Aries like me;I can see similar personality traits from your interesting blog.
Reply #269. Mar 15 10, 6:07 PM
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| lesley153
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No baguette or pastries I'll survive. It's the organic wholemeal bread and pittas that I'll miss (but not enough to risk eating them again).
Years ago I used to enjoy making bread, by hand, with fresh yeast. The bakery in the supermarket would give away enough fresh yeast for a few loaves if you bought bread flour. I'd make a daily wholemeal loaf. Sometimes I'd add onions fried gently in butter, and grated cheese, to the dough. Very occasionally I'd use unbleached white flour and add extra olive oil and some olives. Yum. Never let it be said that I counted calories. I gave some away and they were well received because most of the people I knew didn't have time to do this sort of thing themselves.
The first loaves I made were heavy and rock hard, and my husband suggested keeping them, as they'd be useful if we ever decided to build an extension. So I went back to basics and learnt about the theory behind it, and it was OK after after that. There were only a few simple things to understand, but they made a world of difference.
Thank you for telling me about the book, GG - it's something to think about while I'm waiting to get some energy back. But for now you're right - it's easier to look on the specialist shelves and buy a ready-made one.
And thank you Mark, but I'm afraid I don't share Aries-ness with you. I'm a sweet, shy, retiring Pisces. :) |
Reply #270. Mar 15 10, 6:57 PM
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Professer
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That explains why i get on so well with you lesley :)I cannot imagine having to avoid wheat and gluten. Mind you saying that i do not eat a lot of bread and i do not have pies often.
Reply #271. Mar 16 10, 9:54 AM
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satguru
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That sounds like the source of my lifetime restaurant avoidance. If I'm eating I want to be going about my business (or god forbid cooking it) before it arrives, not sitting like a set of bookends in a room full of tables trying to think of things to distract myself. Self service cuts that particular loop out (provided the queue doesn't replace the sitting) and at least provides a way in if in the mood.
I'd get a test for coeliac from the doctor as well though, you don't want to avoid half the food available if it turns out not to be. My personal regime is attempting to avoid stress but suspect as long as I'm actually alive that won't be a realistic one...
Reply #272. Mar 16 10, 12:35 PM
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| lesley153
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"That explains why i get on so well with you lesley :)"
Why's that, Gary - because we're both sweet, shy, retiring water signs?
David, I'm going to try to get up early on Thursday to see my GP's permanent locum. If I can't manage that - which seems likely - I can use the walk-in up the road. I can't see myself being along in a room with my GP ever again. I can't work with a man who thinks I'm a liar and a hypochondriac, and rolls his eyes when I ask him a question. He needs to become my ex-GP as soon as possible.
One advantage of getting diagnosed is that I shall be able to get some gluten-free foods on prescription. Apparently they will be a lot better than the stuff on the supermarket shelves. So far I have tried the bread, which is dry and sweet, and the ginger biscuits, which are nicely gingery but spoilt by being heavy and dripping with palm oil, which is nothing if not vile. I can't wait (it says here). |
Reply #273. Mar 17 10, 5:52 AM
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Professer
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God just hope i never become Gluten intolerant, where the hell does all this come from, i knowmy grandmother always said they say this is good for you thats bad for you, but they do not know nothing if you like it eat if you do not like it do not eat.
I believe as did she that the people who say these things are paid to say it.
Reply #274. Mar 17 10, 6:38 AM
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MarchHare007
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How's things, Lesley? :)
Reply #276. Mar 23 10, 6:11 PM
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| lesley153
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Me too - I always said thank goodness I'm OK with wheat. :(
GG thank you, what a brilliant link! Reminded me of millet which IIRC is supposed to be a complete protein as well as not being acid-forming, which is unusual for grains and protein foods. Must check though.
MH, things are going very slowly! Everything is a massive effort, and I feel the same as I did two years ago, when my haemoglobin was running at half strength, and I couldn't walk a yard without stopping. I've also got dermatitis herpetiformis on my scalp. It's nothing to do with dermatitis or herpes, and isn't catching, but it's something a lucky one coeliac person in five gets. I've had a lot of luck like that!
The good news is that my iron levels are building, so I can walk and stand for longer (thank goodness), and my inside lower eyelids are starting to get a bit of pink in them, which is not a bad thing.
I've been doing a bit of reading and finding how many conditions are related, how many are mistaken for each other, and how many signs and symptoms of coeliac disease are the same as side effects of omeprazole. The biggest eye-opener has been the damage that coeliac disease can do. It's not an allergy, it's an auto-immune disease, and it's quite frightening.
My GP takes what he sees in drug company literature at face value, and has no idea of the connections that are being made outside this literature, or what people are saying on forums about their experiences with diseases, conditions and medications, and probably wouldn't believe it if he saw it. Too scary. He probably learnt at medical school that newborns sleep for 23 hours a day and I bet he still believes it. Thank goodness for my son who isn't a doctor.
On Monday, Jonathan and I will be making our yearly descent on my bro's house, to spend the week of Passover with them. We shall be in an electronic timewarp but my SIL has recently decided that I'm an honoured guest, and so am allowed to be waited on hand and paw. They're in NW London, and Jonathan was thinking of going straight there, but he will come home and drive us both there if I can't face driving. If I don't feel up to driving, I certainly shan't be able to manage doing it by public transport, even without luggage.
Not very upbeat today, am I? Sorry. |
Reply #277. Mar 23 10, 6:45 PM
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satguru
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Sorry to hear it's all going backwards, and if it is coeliac at least you've saved a few other regimes for a much simpler one which should work. I hope you're OK for the London trip, and at least have an excuse not to shlep around after the family if nothing else.
Reply #278. Mar 23 10, 7:57 PM
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MarchHare007
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Small albeit frustrating steps, Lesley.
Compare how long you've been unwell up till now- with what you've discovered in the last 6 months about your health - and yourself.
Sound like a lovely week to look forward - and being spolied! Perfect!
I think you should have Non-Doctor Jonathon swing past and collect you.
Don't even Consider travelling any other way - that's what family is about. And it would be such a chore (NOT) for your lovely son to detour. :)
Hugs for your frustration and to give you a lift! :)
((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))
Reply #279. Mar 23 10, 8:12 PM
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MarchHare007
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*looks crankily over glasses - raises left eyebrow...and taps foot*
PS Don't Ever Apologise for not being 'very upbeat'!
You need to grizzle - you grizzle.
You need hugs - we send them! :)
((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))
Reply #280. Mar 23 10, 8:15 PM
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