My Last Real Doughnut: The Celiac Realization

In 2010, I had my last real doughnut.

It was an éclair from the Arborg Bakery when my friends and I were in town for a college project. I told them, “Before we leave, we have to stop at the bakery!”

While my friends cooed in doughnut heaven, I drove back to Red River College, scratching my itchy burning hands as they bubbled like pop rocks. 

I couldn’t accept the obvious: I was Celiac.

When one of my aunts was diagnosed in the late 1990s, few people understood Celiac disease. In a nutshell – no gluten. Barley, malt, malt flavour, brewer’s yeast, dextrin. And more! Celiac is an autoimmune disease, and it runs on its own timeline – and it’s often hereditary. Stress or an overload of gluten can mess with your gluten filled life. After years of yummy puffy homemade bread, a body can revolt.

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Hey, You Want a Time Machine – A Chance to Return to High School, Yes or No

“If you could, would you go back to high school?”

Adults are often asked this around graduation season. As social media fills with photos of newly minted graduates, some of you become nostalgic about your own high school experiences.

The time when Hypercolor shirts, Fat Emma & Pie Face Chocolate bars, leggings, bell bottoms, paisley shirts, poodle skirts, mullets, O’Ryan’s Sour Cream and Onion chips, spiral perms, two-centimetres of makeup, and Moon Boots defined your generation. When we were as cool as Cool Ranch Chips and hot as Hot Tamales.

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Let’s be real. We’re still cool and hot, just older with more knowledge – and debt and a Netflix account.

But would you go back to high school?

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When a Hysterectomy Closes the Baby Door, You Cope with Humour

On May 6th, 2021, I found out non-essential and elective surgeries were postponed for the month of May because of the rising number of COVID-19 in Manitoba. These postponed surgeries include hysterectomies.

This post contains the real word for “Mother Nature’s Bill” and “Crimson Tide.” Plus the real names of body parts rather than “hoo-ha.”  
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“So, are you sexually active?” asked my gynecologist.

I tilted my head, pressing my lips together. Stifling a giggle. “I’ve had sex … and I remember sex.” We both burst out laughing. I said “I’m basically a virgin.” 

Humour is my coping mechanism. I’ll laugh if I can’t find a street. If I almost lock myself out of the house. If I walk into a wall. I’m the one who couldn’t stop laughing because I was stuck in the Arborg Coop’s car wash. 

This was a little different though as I sat on an exam table naked from the waist down with a thin piece of paper over me. I felt humour would break the ice as I awaited my third pelvic ultrasound.

My ultrasounds have never been the “fun, happy, you’re having twins” kind. If they were, I’d have the cast of The Sound of Music and their backups. Instead it’s thyroid nodules and two unnamed uterine fibroids.

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It’s Time to Rename Fad Diets – You’re Not on the Real Keto Diet

Meet the keto diet.

However, in the epilepsy community, it’s known as the ketogenic diet and it can be traced back to the 1920s.

The modern day keto isn’t keto. Someone realized they lost weight on the keto diet and, toot, toot, all aboard the temporary weight loss train!

The ketogenic diet isn’t a diet. It’s a treatment for children and teens with uncontrolled (refractory) epilepsy. In 1994, it gained mainstream attention as a seizure control treatment when a young boy with refractory epilepsy was kept seizure free thanks to the ketogenic diet. I live with epilepsy, and I learned about the treatment as a teenager.

Continue reading “It’s Time to Rename Fad Diets – You’re Not on the Real Keto Diet”