In the Beginning
This blog is therapy really, a way to process the recent changes in our lives and cope with the steep learning curve about digestion and food and wellness…and maybe a way to redeem this experience as well. If we can help someone else with what we are learning, it might make it all more worthwhile.
It all started eight months ago when our eighteen year old daughter went on a missions trip to Burkina Faso, West Africa, the summer after she graduated from high school, and brought home more than just souveniers and a lot of great photos. While she was there she picked up a parasite that went undetected for a couple months, since she packed up and left for college soon after returning home. Without dwelling on those miserable months of inexplicable illness while settling into her first semester of college (i.e. lots of frantic phone calls, multiple lab tests over breaks, consultations with out-of-country specialists, rounds of antibiotics, prayers, tears and general over-the-top stress for all involved), let’s just say that by Thanksgiving the “bugs” were gone and Esther was left with a devastated digestive system that couldn’t handle gluten, lactose, or much of anything else.
Since then we have been reading everything we can find, testing recipes, searching for health food stores, and keeping a food diary in pursuit of multiple goals:
1. Finding new foods that do not contain gluten or lactose.
2. Providing simple whole foods for her that will rebuild her health.
3. Making it taste good so that she does not feel deprived.
Accomplishing all that while we are 155 miles apart and in conjunction with dormitory living is an ongoing challenge.
So that’s the story. Recipes, experiments, and musings to follow…and perhaps an occasional rant by mother or daughter on any given day.
