Getting Started

It's taken a long time to get here -- that is, to get to a point where I could embrace my dietary restrictions and the associated lifestyle changes. I was diagnosed with celiac disease in August 2003. Given that my mother and brother both had been diagnosed, it came as no surprise, but I was bitterly angry for a long time. Fortunately, a couple events helped me accept my new lifestyle. A year or so after I was diagnosed, when I was going to skip a work function due to the challenges, a colleague and friend was kindly blunt enough to remind me that it was my reality now and I might as well get used to it. She was right. And then, my brother and sister-in-law sent me a decadent chocolate cake for my birthday -- something not widely available at that time -- and I finally realized I did have options.

It's been a wild ride since then, sometimes bumpy, sometimes smooth, but always interesting. I would like to invite you to join me on this journey. More people are being diagnosed every day, awareness is growing, and the options for those of us on restricted diets thankfully are increasing.

It's bound to be exciting.