Girl Power~

I want to take an opportunity to encourage all of the fantastic women in my life!!! I also want to thank my mom, and many of my awesome girlfriends for the support and encouragement in my recent heath endeavor in finding out that I have Celiac disease. We as women take on so many roles for our spouses, kids, families, and friends; yet we put ourselves (mainly our health) last. We must become our own health advocate. If we don't step up for ourselves, then who will?

My journey with Celiac began when I got pregnant with my son. I was having chronic episodes of diarrhea, and my doctor dismissed this as hormone related after an abdominal ultrasound of my intestines checked out fine. All throughout my pregnancy I felt exhausted, cranky, and continued with bouts of diarrhea, that were again, dismissed. When my son was about 5 months old, I sort of fell apart. I was diagnosed with depression, I was having insomnia, I had lost 20 pounds in two months, and was still battling my poopy issues. I was cranky, tired and felt like it was all I could do to just take care of my kids. Everyone told me (again, including my doctor) that having 2 small children was to blame and that it would get easier. Something just didn't seem right though. I started to feel self-conscious about going to the doctor a lot, and I hoped that they didn't think me a hypocondriac! A month or so later I started to get blisters on my knees, elbows, hands and face off and on that were itchy and first, then they would just go away. I started researching my symptoms on the internet (oh the blessed internet :0) and found that I had many symptoms of and a strong medical history leading me towards being tested for Celiac. I had to go to my doctor, request a referal to a gastroenterologist, and then ask the gastro doctor for me to be specifically tested!!! He seemed a little doubtful at first, but was concerned about the chronic poopy issues. So after lots of blood testing, a stool sample, an endoscopy and a colonoscopy, I was diagnosed!!! (Thanks so much mom for urging me to figure this out!!!)

So I tell you this story to encourage you to have your yearly check-ups (YES even if you are feeling healthy), know your family medical history, do your self-breast exams, and get your pap-smears!!!! Take a list of questions written down on a piece of paper, and yes whip it out and discuss at length with your doctor any concerns that you may have. You are so precious to so many people, and we need to step up and take care of ourselves so that we can continue to take care of our families!!!