So, it seems that I can't eat dairy.
I'll never eat my favorite cheese, Bayley Hazen by Jasper Hill Farms again.
However....
For the first time in memory, my nose does not run every time I eat. In fact, my sinuses are actually better overall. Who knew. I had certainly been tested for allergies, but they were almost always negative for anything except a mild allergy to mildew. And yet sinus problems were a constant, even more so when I was younger, when I admittedly ate more cheese and ice cream than I have in recent years.
For the first time in my adult life, I am not struggling with chronic dry skin, the kind of dry skin that my dermatologists always told me came with chronic allergies: painful, itchy, fragile skin that could easily turn to eczema. No amount of lotion would help. Drinking more water made no difference. Sometimes it was worse, sometimes it was better. No one ever figured it out.
Until now.
Actually, good old Bayley Hazen helped me discover the problem. I had a big party in February. There was leftover cheese, my favorite blue cheese, and I ate it for lunch a couple of days. About that same time I was also sick with GI distress, horrible sinusitis, patches of eczema, and painfully dry, fragile skin overall. My nails all split and peeled, my cuticles all dried, cracked, bled. I was miserable.
My doctor put me on an elimination diet. I got better. I did slowly add dairy back, but in very small amounts and the problem seemed minor. I actually eat little cheese, mostly because I am spoiled rotten, and there was little cheese available locally that met my exacting standards. Ordering cheese to be delivered was not an everyday occurrence. Besides, spring had arrived and I was more than willing to discount to blame pollen for any sinus issues. But still, I knew; even in denial, I knew.
Then mom came, and we ate some kind of dairy product every day for a month. When she left, I was experiencing a full recurrence of my February symptoms, and although I was not nearly as sick as I get from gluten, I knew this was the end of my life with cheese.
It is easier this time, easier than it was with gluten. Perhaps I am older and wiser. Perhaps I am more at ease in my body. I always said I was as healthy as a horse, but architecturally unsound. And so I am. Celiac disease (actually I was first diagnosed with Dermatitis Herpetaformis) was a shock to the young woman so into food, the young woman who could eat anything, who loved both fancy restaurants and questionable-looking little shacks where the food smelled simply amazing. Living without gluten was a challenge for the young woman who grew yeast from wild grapes and made sourdough bread, who made croissants and complicated pastries, who loved to cook and to eat, who felt everything was better made from scratch, and had no fear of trying new techniques, new flavors.
But now, it really doesn't matter as much. If I don't eat it is no great loss. I care about the quality of what I eat when I am home. When I am out I eat or I don't. I don't actually expect much. I hate to be difficult. And truthfully I can tolerate tiny amounts of dairy on rare occasions, the occasional something cooked in butter, although not the rich butter sauce. But I want to enjoy conversations with people. We are a social species after all. I want to enjoy conversations without being distracted by pain, if possible.
We all grow older. Our hair turns gray. Our joints ache. The excesses of youth catch up with us. And, if we are lucky, we move on. Far worse things could happen. Consider the alternatives. Perhaps treasuring what you have is more important than wanting it all. After all, we are not defined by what we have lost, but by what we do with what we have left.
Photo courtesy of Murray's Cheese.