“False Negative”

Well, it seems as if I was duped y'all...or at the very least...MISINFORMED. Found out yesterday (consulted my doc as I am in the middle of a Celiac flare up)that there is NO WAY the second blood test I had done in 2019 was accurate. It showed as negative for elevated antibodies in my blood that indicate Celiac Disease because I had no gluten in my body for the necessary six weeks leading up to the test. Have you ever wanted something so much you willed it to be? Well, let me just tell you...after we spent two wonderful weeks in France and I ate ALL THE BREAD over there with no issues...I came back fully convinced that I was healed. I went right back to my gf diet and set up a second opinion test at Emory Hospital for two months later and got what I now know was a "false negative" test since I was not introducing the gluten into my system to have an accurate test. As of yesterday, I am back on the gluten free train, and am better informed. Onward and Sideways. - The GFG

It's been a WHILE...

I thought I had lost this blog. I tried and tried and TRIED to log in to it and Blogger just kept pulling up a friend's blog and not mine. I was so sad about it. THEN...on a completely dumb luck moment when a Facebook memory brought up an old post I remembered that I had changed email addresses and was logging into the wrong account! I am so overjoyed to have regained access here and to be able to have a space to just come and talk. A WHOLE lot of life has happened since my last post here. A few highlights - I landed a dream job in Atlanta. We bought a house. Gamerboy graduated high school, moved out and is now a full-time social media editor. (I guess all those years of him hogging my laptop and internet were worth it after all.) My PC also scored a killah job in Atlanta. We went on my dream trip to Paris. We made it through a pandemic.... And now, my PC and I are empty nesters and I am back to focusing on getting to know myself better and giving energy to what SERVES me rather than what weighs me down. For most of my life I have been on some sort of diet. It started at 14 when I was told "you'd be really pretty if you lost 20lbs". Fast forward, I am 44 and still hear that sentence as clear as it was spoken 30 years ago...only now, it's my own internal voice speaking it to me on the daily. I poured 30 years into an endeavor I never mastered. I believe I spent all that time and energy on the yo-yo diets because deep down...and I mean DEEP down...I think I always knew I needed to find peace, put down the yo-yo and just walk off into the forest of life on an adventure where counting calories, points, or carbs did not exist. I needed to just BE me and let the beauty all around me inspire me to create a life that is true and beautiful for me. It's been ages since I ate gluten-free. I was diagnosed in 2010 with Celiac Disease, then in 2019 after eating gf for NINE years tested again, and was told I did not have it. I thought this was my free pass to eating gluten. Strange thing is that I actually felt better when I was gluten-free. Who knows? Perhaps it wasn't the gluten. Perhaps it IS the gluten? Perhaps its me making better decisions when I am gluten free like vegetable focused meals vs. bread focused. What I know for sure is this - I am done with dieting. I am done obsessing over how much I will feed my body. I deserve to eat just like every other person and whether or not I decide to be gluten-free or not does not determine my worth as a human being. What does make me feel like a better human being is not eating meat. So, I don't do that now. Gave it up June 10th of this year, and haven't regretted it for a moment. I feel more connected to nature and my spiritual path by not consuming Mother Nature's creatures. So, yeah...gimme the veggies yo'! So, cheers to just being me, Tabitha, a happily married redhead, Mom, friend, nature loving, magic seeking word nerd who is always doing the best I can. Happy Friday, The not-so gluten free Ginger