If you know me then you would know that I had a blog during my undergraduate education after I was diagnosed. However, I would like expand the content and audience of my blog and that is where I am now. But first, let me give you a little more about myself than you can get from the “About” section.
I am (almost – my birthday is August 6th) 22 years old living in the greater St. Louis area. I have a wonderful boyfriend who tries his best to understand my disease and tries even harder not to gluten me.
I recently graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with my Bachelors of Social Work. I start my graduate school education August 17th at WashU STL. I will be getting my Masters in Social Work concentrating in Domestic Social and Economic Development and hopefully specializing in Policy or Management (or both).
I am a book worm, space loving, silly lady with designer taste on a buried to my head in student loans budget. I enjoy binge watching TV series on Netflix and rewatching the same 5 movies over and over again. I’ll eat just about anything if it has cheese on it and I’ll try anything once (but I’ll most likely not like it…. being a picky eater and having celiac disease is a struggle). My boyfriend once thought I cried because I was so happy that Culver’s has a gluten free Udi’s bun (details on that later). I have a tendency of impulsively buying new gluten free products at the grocery store and actually teared up in the frozen isle of Target after finding GF Tyson chicken fingers and nuggets (I can be emotional… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) .
I’ve never been severely glutened since I went gluten free but I have growing anxiety when eating out or eating food that I did not prepare myself/that was not prepared by someone I trust to keep me healthy. That is part of the reason I wanted to start this blog, as a journal for myself of all the great experiences that I have out in STL (and elsewhere) but to also document not so great experiences to help others who may be dealing with the fear and anxiety that come along with trying to keep up a social life and have a normal life while living with Celiac Disease.
Last but not least, here is a small guest blog post I wrote for the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. It explains a little more in detail of my diagnosis and the feelings I had surrounding that moment. There is a link to my old blog so feel free to explore my old posts but I do not use that site anymore.
I am excited to start this journey and I hope you stick around for the ride.