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We Begin Again

Recently unarchived. Dated January 2022

What in your life do you love to do, and yet continually put on the back burner?

I’ve been writing short stories from a young age. One of my earliest memories is writing an illustrated book about my experience getting stitches following a fall off a skateboard when I was seven years old. Seven stitches when I was seven – I thought that little coincidence was just wild. Later in grade school when our family got our first desktop computer, I played around in Microsoft Publisher and created my own personal newsletter. We had just moved and I hadn’t made many friends – needless to say I had a lot of time on my hands. I remember writing an article on making a new friend. I believe my circulation hovered around 5: mom, dad, brother, and two grandmas.
In high school I took instantly to Yearbook, advancing to editor my senior year. I started out as a Political Science and Pre-Law major in college. Following a compulsory Intro to Journalism course, I gravitated toward the newspaper staff and rose to News Editor. Something in me gravitates towards stories. I love to read them, I love to tell them.
Out of college I worked as a newspaper reporter and freelance writer. Once kids came along, I grew frustrated with the lack of quiet, focused time to get into a creative space. I started this blog when our third child (in a four year span) was a couple of months old to chronicle my husband’s health issues. It was a stressful time and once again I found myself using words to make sense of it all. The demands of mothering three young kids once again pushed their way to the forefront and writing was shoved off to the side, something I would do someday.
As I ponder my youngest heading off to kindergarten in the fall, it feels like a fresh beginning for us both. I’m ready to return to my first love. It is scary to begin again. Quite possibly I’ll put myself out there and nothing will come of it. I have to be ok with that.

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Yummy Pesto

As we enter week four of Judd’s elimination diet (!) I want to start sharing some tried and true recipes. Eating gluten-free and vegan certainly doesn’t have to be bland. Judd and I have had fun experimenting with flavors in the kitchen.  One that we come back to often is lemon. If life (or Costco) gives you more lemons than you know what to do with, make my new favorite pesto sauce.

We love it on quinoa pasta with some roasted veggies on the side. Or on zoodles – don’t even get me started on my love affair with zoodles. It tastes like summer in a bowl. Plus it is super easy to do a triple batch and have it on hand. I honestly think I like this version better than traditional pesto that uses parmesan. Yep, it’s that good.

The first time I served it on zoodles my two-year-old ate my share and I got none. Sad for mama, but also pat on the back for mama because baby’s eating veggies.

Simple Vegan Pesto

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Why are you doing that?

This is my favorite question these days when I tell people about my husband’s diet. It is meant innocently, of course. But sarcastically in my head I think “because we are super cool and trendy” or “because we are noble and we treat our bodies as temples.” In reality, my husband is on an extremely limited diet as a means to determine what is causing his body such pain when he eats.

Allow me to back up a bit. About a year ago, my husband Judd told me that he was going to see a GI doc because his throat felt tight when we eats. As though he was giving me the weather report he casually mentioned that he had “choked a couple of times.” That doc prescribed reflux medication. No surprise there – Judd has had reflux at different times in his adult life and his father has reflux.

Months later, Judd had no relief from the pain in his esophagus. In fact, it felt worse. Drugs were switched around and still no relief came. Finally an endoscopy revealed that he has EOE. EOE stands for Eosinophilic esophagitis and now you know why everyone calls it EOE.

According to the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders:

“Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic, allergic inflammatory disease of the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach). It occurs when a type of white blood cell, the eosinophil, accumulates in the esophagus and persists despite acid-blocking medicine. The elevated number of eosinophils cause injury and inflammation to the esophagus. This damage may make eating difficult or uncomfortable, potentially resulting in poor growth, chronic pain, and/or difficulty swallowing.”

Food allergy testing gave us some information on possible culprits. We learned he is allergic to lots of things: peanuts, hazelnuts, navy beans, tomatoes . . . . seriously more than I can even remember off the top of my head. But to narrow down on the true cause, we were advised to do a total elimination diet. Here is how it works: for four weeks he cuts out all possible allergens. Then he will have an endoscopy to confirm that the triggers have cleared out of his body. If everything looks good, he gets to add back in meat, then another endoscopy four weeks later. Every four weeks he gets to add in another food group and he gets an endoscopy to let us know if the reintroduced food caused a reaction. In Judd’s case this will take 20 weeks if all goes well.

So there you have it. I’m sorry to report that we are in fact NOT trying to create a new fad diet. But if we did, we would name it something awesome. This blog will chronicle our journey as we aim to get Judd healthy. EOE is a newer diagnosis and we hope to connect and encourage others with EOE as well.