When I was 33 years old, the medical odyssey of my life began. One Sunday afternoon a severe headache made me end up in the emergency room. Apparently everything was fine according to the tests that the doctors performed, but after a few hours they simply sent me home.
I will not go into details of the succession of events that marked the 4 long years of comings and goings to different hospitals in Havana. Specialists of I don't know how many specialties, diagnoses as crazy as possible, tests and more tests, stress, depression and above all desperation to know a definitive diagnosis.
At the age of 37 I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. It is not the most serious disease in the world, there are people suffering from worse ones, but it is incurable and there is no known medical treatment to date. Not everything is so bad, the good part is that with a completely gluten-free diet you can live normally...but...here things get complicated.
Eating a gluten-free diet in today's world is a bit difficult. The industrial process favors cross-contamination of foods that by their nature do not contain gluten. In addition, almost all binders used in the food industry contain gluten. Add to this my particular situation of living in Cuba and the difficulty increases exponentially 🤣.
But...looking at the good again, this situation leaves me with a very healthy diet. I don't eat processed or canned foods, nothing containing wheat, barley or rye and a whole bunch of others that might contain traces of gluten. My diet is concentrated on fruits (unfortunately their availability here is very scarce) vegetables, tubers, grains, meats, cereals such as rice and corn. I buy all my food raw and try to use chemical free crops. In addition, the seasonings I incorporate are also natural.
Living with Celiac Disease has been a challenge, not only for me, but also for my family. My social life was quite limited at first. Eating out, going on vacation, dining out with friends or family was suddenly forgotten.These things have been improving over the years, we have looked for alternatives and the misunderstandings of those closest to us have been dissipating, making it possible to share at certain times.
I'm like a baby, if I go out, I have to carry my food in my purse 😆, but I'm going!!!
On the other hand there are the side effects of this disease, they are many and very dissimilar I have undoubtedly impacted my general health and physical well being, but it is what it is and there is nothing left but to face it with a positive attitude. There is still a lot I can do to get better!
Photo and text by me. Translated with DeepL.