Profound Appreciation

I finally have a diagnoses, and miraculously it is something minor in scope.  Having spent the last three weeks with all my doctors thinking I had cancer, it was a relief to be told that instead I have celiac disease.  There are many reasons why this rather sad state of affairs is actually a reason to rejoice.

Specialist after specialist told me that they felt my problems were of a cancerous, or lupis like nature.  A couple of the doctors said the extreme hair loss and nausea combined with the exhaustion must mean my body was shutting down.  And in some ways it was.  I have spent most of the last year, and several years before that struggling to lose weight.  No diet, exercise, or medication was solving the problem, and the very fact that I was struggling with losing weight was the reason the doctors never tested me for gluten intolerance.

I have recently learned that almost half of the people with celiac disease are actually overweight because of the disease.  My body, and theirs, hold on to everything that enters our mouths and turns it into storage, because our bodies are starved for nutrients.  I have also learned that women with the disease will miscarry between weeks 6 and 12, all but one of my five miscarriages fits that bill.  Fertility can return with a gluten free diet.  Weight loss can be achieved with a gluten free diet.

So I see this diagnoses as the best reason for Thanksgiving this year.  Yeah, I will never eat another cookie, or cake, or pie, unless it has been seriously altered, but I will live, and maybe God willing, I will have a baby, and a longer healthier life, and thinner body.  I feel like God handed me a rose ... yes, there are thorns, but the beauty of the gift far outweighs the prick and sting of the thorns.

I am thankful to be alive.   I am thankful for an amazing husband, loving family and friends, and for the glorious sun in the sky.  I am grateful for my dogs, and my little house, and the fact that I have a job, and a great boss who has helped me navigate my illness.  And I am so grateful for a God who loves me in ways I can't fathom.  That he has given me all that he has is a wonder beyond imagining.  He has healed the many wounds that have pocked by soul these last several months, and made me whole again.  How grateful I am for His love and His grace, and His infinite kindness and knowledge that sees the picture in ways I cannot.

Yes, this is indeed a day of deep and wonderful gratitude.