When You Lay in Clover Beware of Bees

Training: Week 9, Day 1
Distance: 11.67 miles
Time: 1 hour 2 minutes
Power Song: Shadow Play by The Killers

Finding out I was gluten intolerant began with a minor bowel obstruction, that hoodwinked my doctors into believing was my gallbladder. Yeah, I can see this is going to need an explanation.

November 2008 Eric took me to the ER for extreme pain in my right side. I was relatively assured it was a bowel obstruction-- I'd had one the year before and clearly remembered the symptoms and namely the pain. At the ER the doctor of course ran a battalion of tests before shipping me off to my surgeon in Grand Rapids. I was hospitalized overnight and sent home.

Two weeks later my primary care doctor called and told me I need to have my gallbladder removed-- apparently, I had more than 20, but less than 30, gallstones and they were the cause of my earlier hospitalization. I was a little shocked to say the least that this was the first time I'd heard about gallstones-- or maybe the drugs in the ER scrambled my short term memory.

Long story short, I couldn't have my gallbladder removed until January and I was instructed to eat a bland diet until surgery. Following doctor's orders, I spent the month of December eating toast, soda crackers, pasta and feeling like I was dying a slow death. By the time I hit the operating table in January I was screaming for them to take my gallbladder out! I couldn't believe that my condition deteriorated so quickly because of an organ the size of a walnut.

Needless to say after my gallbladder came out I needed to detox myself of my high carb bland diet. I started following a no sugar, no wheat diet that my mom follows.

This is what my daily menu looked like:
Breakfast: 1 oz of oatmeal (the real kind, not instant), 8 oz of plain yogurt (the real kind with no flavoring added) and 6 oz of fruit
Lunch: 4 oz lean protein, 6 oz. of cooked vegetable, 6 oz. of raw vegetable w/1 Tbsp. dressing
Dinner: 4 oz lean protein, 6 oz. of cooked vegetable 8 oz of raw vegetable w/2 Tbsp. dressing
I thought for sure I was going to die. My impending death wasn't because this menu didn't include dark chocolate (which was a concern), no, I was more focused on the amount of raw vegetables listed. Raw is a word that most colitis sufferers avoid because if it's raw, it's going to make you raw. However, I had to break my high carb life or my pants weren't going to fit anymore, so I decided to try it for a week.

And I'll be damned. I was fine. In fact, I felt solid and regular--- words that hadn't describe my bathroom habits in several year.