Gluten is the Devil

I'm not losing my mind I swear! May just happened to be like every other month before it, a mess and absolutely crazy.

Grab your popcorn because I'm about to go on a little rant.

I unfortunately had to come to grips with some things I had been avoiding and hoping I could just outsmart. Trouble is it's kind of hard to outsmart your own body. Not knowing what is causing my health issues I decided to become a bit more extreme about my health. My rheumatologist literally told me over a year ago that I was very likely to develop another autoimmune disorder, yet he is unable to diagnose anything at this time because of my weird test results. Did you know it takes on average 6 years to get a Lupus diagnosis and around 2.8 years for Sjogren's? That's only two of the many autoimmune disorders out there. How crazy is that? For 6 years people are struggling with things like fatigue, headaches, joint pain and more while doctors slowly rule out other options just to tell them that they're fine and it's all in their head. Or to basically give up and suggest to their patients that they seek alternative methods to treat symptoms. Yea, I've gotten to that point with my rheumatologist. It's annoying and disheartening.

When I was first diagnosed with celiac disease a few years back my doctor had told me to stick to a gluten free diet (duh) but that later on I might be able to eat a little bit of gluten here and there. I held onto this hope hard. You have no idea how much I miss bagels and Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. I had read from one person with celiac disease that they went full on "gluten is the devil" and they don't touch the stuff EVER. They have specific pots and pans for cooking with gluten and for cooking gluten free to stop cross contamination. They have a separate toaster, and everything in the refrigerator, freezer and cupboards is separated so anything gluten is nowhere near the gluten free items. I kept telling myself, "I'm not THAT bad. If a gluten filled bread crumb touches my gluten free piece of toast it's not going to kill me." Plus, it's kind of embarrassing when your friends want to get together and all the snacks are full of tasty gluten and I have to remind them and myself that, "yea, I can't eat that anymore." Or I bring gluten free snacks for myself and everyone else eats them like it's no big deal. Or when I want to be lazy and not cook dinner for once but no nearby restaurant offers gluten free options. Or when some family make remarks to my husband that I must be faking it and I can't have celiac disease because they didn't see the test results. Yea, there may not be a lot of physical symptoms that you can actually see but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Shit's hard and it really sucks. If everyone in your house went gluten free for you I could see how it'd be a little easier. But I'm not about to make my husband go gluten free when it's not his body that wants to projectile everything out the back end upon eating gluten. It's not fair to him. So we have a split household, which makes things more difficult because I have to see and smell the delicious gluten filled bread he eats or his breaded and fried fish. And I've been good. I've been eating gluten free, and the snacks I eat are healthier, I'm not just munching on the gluten free alternative to Pringles. Yet, a few years later I still have a shit ton of health issues that doctors can't find a reason for. They treat the symptoms best they can but have no idea of the cause so they tell me to seek alternative methods of treatment and wait a few years because then maybe they can actually diagnose something. Which is crap. So I decided I'll do a little experiment. I know this isn't all in my head and I know this can't all be blamed on celiac disease, which my doctor tried to do. So now, I'm going to be that crazy celiac woman and see what happens. Could some of my issues still be related to celiac disease? Yea, sure, some of it possibly. I may be eating a gluten free diet but that doesn't mean there's no cross contamination going on. So I deep cleaned and reorganized everything in my kitchen to keep my gluten free food away from the gluten. I don't have anywhere to put gluten free specific pots and pans right now so I'll have to wait on those but it's at least a start. No more take out for me either anymore. Some of my favorites do have gluten free options available but they also make things with gluten. Meaning they are gluten intolerant* friendly, but not so much if you have celiac disease. Guess it's time to say goodbye to James Street Pizza. :(

Anyway....

I wasn't able to do too much art this last month unfortunately. I was able to start some projects but I was unable to finish them by the end of the month. I created some really awesome greeting cards though. Look at those foxes! They are so adorable and gorgeous!

My works in progress are my latest nature piece and the Patreon exclusive coloring page for the month of May (yes, I know it's late). I still have all the coloring to do for the waterfall picture and all the penwork to do for the coloring page but I just haven't had enough time between my health issues, my other projects and prepping for events. :(

Yea, there are a ton of leaves. It's gotten to the point that when I'm outside I actually catch myself counting leaves and blades of grass. It's insane...I might be insane.

If you have been following at all you probably noticed my Puns of Fun project on Kickstarter did not get funded. It ended on the 28th with 66% funding. About halfway into the month I noticed my health declining and the more I tried to keep up with posting about the project, posting on social media in general and keeping up with other projects, the worse I got. I held onto the hope that I'd start feeling better before it ended and I would be able to encourage and inspire enough people to back my project but, it didn't happen. I'm not giving up on the project though, one way or another I'll bring it to life but for now, I'm going to let myself and my project rest. I'm thinking about expanding on the project, maybe adding another pin to the series and come up with some awesome stretch goals. A keychain, maybe a punny sticker set. I absolutely love the Puns of Fun pin collection and it deserves to be seen and brought to life, unfortunately this just wasn't the right time for it. Maybe this fall will be better.

The highlight of last month was definitely my first event of the year. It feels so great to be doing events again. I went to the Northside Farmer's Market in Madison and I was so nervous. It was raining when it first started so setup was a bear but the weather cleared up and people still came out. It was a little rough at the beginning, it was like I had completely forgotten how to do events and talk to people. By the end of it though I was feeling great and smiling and laughing with everyone that stopped by. And my setup this year looks so nice! I knew I wouldn't be able to set things up like I used to so I was a bit nervous.

This month I plan to take it as easy as I can. Until I've recovered I'm delaying some projects. It sucks, but I would rather put 100% into one or two projects than half ass four or five projects. So I'll only be releasing two videos this month and I'll be temporarily shutting down my Patreon page. I love creating the coloring pages but right now it's taking too much of my time and effort. I'm hoping to bring the Patreon page back up in the fall.

I have a few events lined up this month that I'm excited about, my husband almost always goes with me so I never have to worry about the stress of doing them alone. I plan to finish my waterfall picture and the Patreon exclusive coloring page for sure. I'd also like to finish drawing out and do all the coloring for The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I did a lot of work on it last month but never finished. I'd love to create more fox or raccoon themed art too but we'll see. I'm supposed to be taking it easy and recovering but everything's starting to sound pretty busy.

Hope you have an awesome June and thank you so much for sticking with me and being so understanding when I don't always post on social media and when I just need to give myself some time. You guys and gals are the best.

*Gluten intolerance is like the simpler, less severe version of celiac disease. It results in a lot of the same symptoms but it does not do long term damage to your internal organs like celiac disease does.