Melissa Writes

I was doing a little google search on celebs that have the dreaded C.  There were like five listed.  I got to thinking why wouldn’t more people be listed.  Well, my number one guess is that people aren’t getting tested because they don’t know they symptoms and other associated issues.  So I’m going to be twittering them throughout the next few days. I’m going to try to post five tonight and five each day until I get them all. Ok so I tried that then realized very quickly it would be this time next year before I got it done.  It’s not that I want a whole bunch of people to have this but I don’t want people to suffer.

What started all of this,  why was I googling it to begin with?  I saw a quote on a message board that really bothered me.  It takes on average 11 years to be diagnosed here in the US.  It takes three weeks to get diagnosed in Europe. ELEVEN YEARS!!! Eleven years to be miserable for no reason other then our medical community doesn’t understand it.  So here we go….

1. bloating, gas and/or abdominal pain
2. Weight loss and fluid retention
3. Heart Failure
4. chronic diarrhea, pale, foul-smelling, or fatty stool, constipation
5. unexplained iron-deficiency anemia
6. fatigue
7. bone or joint pain, arthritis, bone loss or osteoporosis
8. depression or anxiety Behavior changes/depression/irritability
9. tingling numbness in the hands and feet
10. missed menstrual periods, infertility or recurrent miscarriage
11. Muscle weakness
12. Delayed growth or onset of puberty
13. Epitasis (nose bleeding)
14. Hematuria (red urine)
15. No obvious physical symptoms (just fatigue, overall not feeling well)
16. Vitamin B12 deficiency

Now for the issues that go along with Celiac check this link out Celiac Disease.  Yes, all of those things listed go along with Celiac.  So take a moment to read all the links provided there is a lot more information there then here.  If you start to wonder if you do have it go to Celiac Central do the checklist and take it to your doctor.  MAKE THEM DO THE TESTS!

References:

Celiac Central

Medicine Net

Celiac Disease Foundation

Celiac.com

This has been an interesting week for me.  My grandma spent Sunday night to Thursday afternoon in the hospital.  While I was there, I learned a woman I had worked with during high school had been told that the reason for her problems was Celiac.  Oh the joy right?

I spent a whole day emailing with her about things they didn’t tell her.  Have your parents and your child checked.  Why? It’s genetic, you had to get it from somewhere.  Check your make-up, hair dye, shampoo, and lotions.  Why?  It can all have wheat in it and you don’t want to be absorbing and undoing the healing you are trying to do.  I’m afraid I overwhelmed her, but I offered to answer what I could.

That evening my in-laws came up to sit with grandma while my husband and I went out for dinner.  We are pretty sure his mom has Celiac.  He asked her how her “rash” was doing now that she was watching her diet.  She told him the only thing she had cut out was bread because, “it hurts my stomach.”  Yeah, and you don’t think you’ve got Celiac huh?  Then the truth came out, she said, “I don’t want to have it.”  Well, no one else wants to have it.  It’s not a choice.

The next day hubby and I were discussing it and he said that if he had known he would have never had kids.  That’s how he feels about it all.  He would give up his two wonderful kids to spare them from having the same thing.

Last night I clicked on a link from twitter.  It was some one’s blog about being told that they had Celiac.  I wanted to cry.  The information given to that person was so far off that it wasn’t even funny, at least according to my research. Let me breakdown some points real quick.

• Less than 1% of the population has it.  Nope, the American medical community hasn’t caught up with the rest of the world in figuring out how to diagnosis it.  It is estimated that 1 in 133 Americans have it, but much less actually know it.
• Something has to happen for it to activate if you have the gene.  No, you either have Celiac or you don’t.  There’s no dormant Celiac.  The problem is there are so many things that actually caused by Celiac that aren’t connected to it.  Bloody noses, depression, ADD/ADHD, osteoporosis all can be signs of Celiac.  Most doctors treat the symptoms but don’t look for the cause.

If you have a question for one of experts please leave a comment. All questions will be answered here and on Twitter, follow @MelissaMeek to see the answers there!

I just read a great blog post.  I follow the writer on Twitter.  He has that horrible thing called Celiac.  Those with Celiac think they have it bad, try being the wife. It was more of a learning experience for me then anyone else.  That though is a whole other story.

In the blog he talks about what it’s like to dine out.  It’s tricky let me tell you.  We like to eat out, not that I don’t like to cook, I love it.  It’s just fun to eat out and we are lucky we can.  The thing I have found out though, it’s not so much fun to eat out with a Celiac person.  There’s only a few restaurants we can eat at.  They get boring after awhile.  I look forward to dinner out with the girls when I can eat some place that doesn’t have gluten free.

Our favorite gluten free restaurant – Outback Steakhouse in Topeka, KS.  Why?  It’s simple really.  They have dessert and a real menu, it was that simple.  Our first outing there was Valentine’s Day.  I told the host that we had a gluten free person with us.  That’s all it took, he got a special menu, they came out and talked to him about the menu, checked and double checked to make sure everything was coming out ok.  Then the moment of pure utter excitement, he got dessert.  It wasn’t just ice cream, it was a brownie.  Have you ever seen a 45 year old man act like a 5 year old girl who just got a pony?  Take a brownie loving Celiac to Outback, you’ll see it.  

The keys to eating out, find a couple of places that understand it, become their friend and tell them how much you appreciate the fact that they offer it.

I figured my first post after the holiday would be about my reunion.  It was an exciting thing and I want to share with you all, but my state government has irked the living crap out of me.  I must vent about it.

Here in Kansas, we have a lovely statehouse.  It’s very pretty, has some great historic parts to it.  I also know that with old buildings that you have to do work on them so they don’t fall down around your ears.  I live in an older home, I’ve got that figured out.  There’s one thing that I have figured out that our lovely state reps must not have yet, if you don’t have money for the basics you have to hold off the remolding.

I know the economy sucks right now and that we all have to make sacrifices.  I was ticked off enough about the budget cuts  for education, the lottery was supposed to keep education funded.  Then today on the local news they announce that the state is issuing bonds to cover the renovation to the statehouse.  That’s right, we’ve cut the school’s budgets by $116 per pupil (rumors have it that another $116 will be cut by next year), but approved $38 million in bonds to keep the statehouse pretty.  Ummm….. it doesn’t matter how pretty something is if no one is educated enough to work there.  

Maybe that’s the state’s plan, cut funding for education, students lose out of many things, then when it’s time for them to get jobs they won’t have to pay as much.  I want to reach out and smack someone.  Get a clue!!!!  You can’t be dropping $38 million for a building, when you can’t fund education at the level it has been in the past.

You can read the whole article from wibw.com .  They are my local news channel that alerted me to this….. well….. I’ll let you fill in the blank for yourself.

Oh I’m one of those lucky adults that gets summer vacation.  Somehow it’s never as relaxing as it was when I was 6.  When I was 6 I didn’t want to go back to school, summer was too fun.  Now by the end of July I’m looking forward to going back to school, aka work.  I’ve got some lofty plans for this summer, maybe if I share them with you then I’ll succeed in a few of them. Before the summer even begins, officially Thursday at noon, I have to finish a memory book for one of the retiring teachers.  It’s not often that the person who taught you do you end up sharing part of your workday with as a co-worker.

My Goals:

1. Make one gluten-free sweet for my sweetie each week.
2. Figure out a decent gluten-free bread recipe.
3. Deal with the failures of gluten-free baking without saying to heck with it.
4. Finish my crafting space, so I can have any area that is solely mine.
5. Make grandma’s curtains that I’ve had the fabric for for a year.
6. Finish baby gifts for children that have already been born. lol
7. Spend at least an hour a day writing.
8. Keep up on e-mails.
9. Learn something new.
10. Knit
11. Crochet
12. Sew
13. See my students play in a summer baseball/softball game.

Ok net now it’s up to you to help me keep this up.

A buddy of mine has a blog of his own.  He’s got a great article up right now about why is Kasey Kahne so famous.  I think everyone should check it out. Outlaw Ramblings – Why Is Kasey Kahne So Famous?

Who do you think is more famous then the deserve? I’ll pick the most popular answer and write a blog post about that driver.

I’m home this morning.  Grandma isn’t feeling well and the husband had to go to work today.  So I’m here, reading twitter.  I know exciting isn’t it? So I was catching up on all the tweets that had came through over night when I found one about volunteer firefighters being charged with arson.  It peeked my interest so I checked it out. Why don’t you check it out and read the comments Orangeville Volunteer FireFighters Charged with Arson I’ll wait for you before I start ranting.

You back now?  Read the comment about vollies being dogs?  Yeah can you guess what my rant is about now? Some big shot paid fire fighter thinks he is better then any volunteer out there.  I hate that attitude.  Not because I’m a volunteer fire fighter but because it shows that the person doesn’t have a clue about what it means to be a volunteer. You see we have to do the same training that the paid people do, the only difference is we are doing it on weekends, in the evenings after working all day, and for free.  Our shift never ends, we are only call 24/7, 365, rain, sleet, snow, hail, tornadoes, swine flu outbreaks, you name it we are there.  

That guy thinks something like that would never happen on a paid department.  He’s kidding himself.  Do a quick google search, there are plenty of them.  Heck, a few years ago there was someone who had done it in California that wrote a book.  He was the fire investigator.  Anyone else remember the book?

I hope that the man who called volunteers mutts someday needs our services.  Then he will learn that we are more professional than he is.

My lovely followers, no matter how few you are, please sit back while I rip at Nascar for a moment. Feel free to leave your comments below if you have any rants you want to add.

Nascar, first I want to tell you that I  love you.  Ok, well it’s more in like with you lately.  See you’ve made me mad. I don’t love things I’m mad at.

I’m not your demographic, I know.  I’m your target age 29, I’m your target sex female, but I’m not someone who was drawn to the sport by Dale Sr.’s death.  Nope I’d been watching long before that.  September of 1979, do the math, I’ve watched since birth.  I’m not a white collar girl, not here, blue collar all the way.  My favorite drivers weren’t picked by how cute they are or how well they fill out the uniform.  I’m sure I’ve got what you would call redneck tendencies.  You want to disown us, we don’t bring you enough money.  That doesn’t matter to me, it’s still a sport near to my heart.

Cookie cutter tracks suck!  It’s not good racing.  Darlington and The Rock provided better racing then Kansas and Las Vegas ever could.  I live an hour from Kansas Speedway and have been there once.  I’d much rather nap in my air conditioned house then in the stands.

You’ve forgotten your roots.  I understand the sport had to grow out of just the south.  Growth can only keep happening when you don’t cut your roots off.  You start killing all the tradition in Nascar and you alienate your core.  See those blue collar people who were fans before 2001, they are the ones who will drive all over the country to watch the races.  For the white collar crowd you are just a status symbol.  Nascar is their new country club, soon that will wear off and they won’t want you anymore.

You hide your head in the sand.  That’s right Nascar your head is stuck in the sand.  For whatever reason you don’t want to see the problems that you have.  Your first step will be to admit you have problems.  Not sure what they are?  Let me help.

Punks are taking over the sport.  Remember back in 2001 when Kevin Harvick came in and thought he was too cool for school?  You sat his butt, the vets kicked his butt, and now he’s not a punk anymore.  His head is on straight and he is a pretty decent guy on the track.  You need to let that happen to some of the new guys.  Punks aren’t fun to watch or listen to.  It’s bad when you hear almost every race, “Well, I’m just that much better than everyone else.”  Guess what it turns some of us off.

You have a drug problem.  I know you don’t want to hear that, but you do. You’ve had it for years, it’s not new.  Remember Tim Richmond?  Yeah, I know you thought everyone else had forgotten about it too.  You’ve kicked a few out, but you haven’t done anything to help them.  The problem doesn’t go away if you wash your hands of them.  You are supposed to be a family, family members help each other.  Get them into a program, get them some counseling, do something, something is better than nothing.  You are busting lower rung people.  You want me to believe that if the Aaron Fike’s of the sport are scoring some drugs, that you don’t have upper tier drivers doing the same thing?  Please, give me a break.  You want to wake someone up?  Bust some of the big names.  I know you know who they are.  Do it, set some precedence.  

Nascar the ball is in your court now, what are you going to do with it?

I’ve had two blogs before, both were super specific themes.  One was a Nascar blog, the other was a gluten-free blog.  I love both topics, the problem is I have a million hundreds interests.  I want to share them all. When you have a racing blog you can’t talk about your new knitting project.  I need a place to just write. Share myself with the world. So here it is, melissawrites.com.  Nifty huh?

I’m not going to bore you with the basics about me.  If you really want to know that, well find me.  I’ll tell you.  I will tell you what you can expect from this blog.  Nascar news, gluten-free, crafting, photography, fire fighting, rants, and maybe even a few raves about something; if you are lucky I might pull out a few old interviews I did for a Nascar site.  

How to find me:

Twitter: @melissameek

E-Mail: melissa@melissawrites.com