Saturday 8 December 2012

Saturday 8 December 2012

Catherine has been waiting nearly four weeks for attention since the doctor told her the latest blood test showed positive for coeliac disease and she'd need an endoscopy to confirm it. Meanwhile she is meant to continue eating gluten-containing food so that the reactions they provoke will show up on the tests. But these foods produce the nausea, tummy pains, fatigue, bloating, etc that have been plaguing her for months. And she has just learnt - probably because I spent a good deal of Tuesday going in and out of the surgery and ringing them - that the waiting list is 14 weeks. So we have decided to go gluten free for a while and see if it makes a difference. Reading about it has confused me as to the difference between wheat intolerance and coeliac - some see them as a continuum as the symptoms are very similar, but apparently the causes and mechanisms are quite different. She seems to cope really well with work, considering how poorly she feels, though it's getting insanely busy, and from behind the till it seems that Christmas shopping aggravates everyone's worries and irritations, which get taken out on the sales assistants.But what gets Catherine down, besides feeling unwell, is the lack of definite plans for the months after the M&S job ends. So worries trundle on.

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