Personal Narrative: Celiac Disease

It was the middle of summer when it happened. I was about 9 years old and my mom and dad had just called me into my mom’s room. I had had a medical procedure about a couple of weeks before hand so I wasn’t surprised when they said it was about the results. They started talking to me about the results when they finally told me the main thing that had showed up. Celiac Disease. They started explaining what it was to me because I had never heard about it before. I don’t remember exactly what they said but it was something along the lines of, “Son, there are a lot of things you can’t eat anymore.” They said I couldn’t eat things that involved bread like cakes, cookies, cupcakes, etc. They also warned me about something called cross-contamination which is where if something made with gluten and

I didn’t know that people could be allergic to such an important ingredient in a lot of foods. After this happened to me I was really upset that I couldn’t eat certain things anymore but I eventually got over it. I had to start watching out for things that have gluten that you wouldn’t expect them to. This is important because it drastically impacted my daily life. Before I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted but now I have to be careful or else I will hurt myself. I had to learn to look at the ingredients of almost everything I eat. I can no longer ask my mom to pull over at a McDonalds’ or something and grab me a burger. I can no longer go to places that rely on gluten as a main ingredient in their dishes, like places that serve pasta, noodles, breads, pastries, breaded meats, or other things like that. I can no longer ask my mom to order me a large pizza with pineapple, ham, and bacon (I can order a small gluten-free crust pizza with two toppings at domino’s for about $10