The Enemy in Your Cupboard

There once was a boy named Bob. He was like most other boys his age. He liked baseball, hockey, and small engines. Bob had an interesting habit. He used the toilet a lot. A lot. At first, he didn’t think much about the number of times he went to the bathroom. He figured everyone had to go a dozen times a day. Any boy wouldn’t know what was normal, right? “Hey, Charlie, how often do you blink? How often do you think about girls? How often do you poop?” See, it’s not really something that comes up in conversation. Besides, once he suspected that something was wrong, he certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone about it. Hello! What teenage boy wants to have that talk? Eventually, Bob went to the doctor. After a few quick upward glances (including one or two involving a camera-on-a-stick) Bob was told the diagnosis: ulcerative colitis. Bob adhered to a daily regimen of all sorts of pills. Every morning, he popped 5 to 20 ml of a steroid called Prednazone, a sulfur based medicine that only made things smell bad, another suppository, and two different blood pressure meds. Three times a day, he wolfed down prescription strength anti-diarrheal, and other maintenance meds. Over the years, Bob got to know his colon the way a jockey knows his horse. He knew which foods were going to make him “pay for it” before the night was over. He enjoyed beer, but it always kicked back. Salsa was dangerous, probably because of the heat. Spaghetti was bad because of the acidity of the tomato sauce. When he was being good, he would avoid those foods, but that wasn’t always easy. Sometime in the midst of his digestive rollercoaster, Bob was lucky enough to land a wife. Her name was Bridget. Her major role in this story will be apparent later on. Eventually, his doctor decided that the medicine was not doing its job properly. (This had been Bob’s opinion for years.) The doc’s solution offered hope, but seemed a bit extreme. He was going to remove Bob’s colon. The whole thing. He wasn’t even going to have a semi-colon left. Since all the problems Bob had began in the colon, the idea was, if they got rid of it, the issues would go with it. It sounded too good to be true. It was. Once Bob’s body recovered from the surgery, he was ready to enjoy a life free of medicines and fear of unpleasant bowel movements. For nine years, he kept waiting for this new life to begin, but it never did. He kept looking for a time to get off the meds, but he was never healthy enough to do it. He had tried the most radical treatment for ulcerative colitis there was, and he had not been cured. He was stuck with this forever. Then Bridget met Carolyn. Carolyn is the wife of a man who is a good friend of the father of the husband of Bridget’s older sister. So, of course, Bridget struck up a conversation with her one day. Somehow, the topic came around to some of Carolyn’s dietary discomfort. (How this subject came up in what was essentially a polite discussion of the weather is best left unpublished.) It turned out that Carolyn had been victim of many of the same symptoms as Bob. She had not developed her symptoms until later in life, but her initial treatments had proved fruitless as well. Finally, she had looked into Celiac Disease. She had wanted to see if she was intolerant of gluten. When she had stopped eating anything with wheat in it, her symptoms had disappeared. Bridget gasped. “All of your symptoms stopped?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “If I eat wheat, I feel it. If I don’t, I’m fine.” Bridget’s mind whirled. Could this be the answer? Might Bob have Celiac Disease? Were his problems that simple? If that were true, she saw a light at the end of his, ahem, digestive tunnel. Bridget then went to her local medical authority: her older sister, Dr. Liz, M.D. Liz obviously knew Bob’s history and thought Bridget’s thinking had some validity. It wouldn’t take long to figure it out, Liz said. Maybe a week of eating gluten free. If he felt better, the answer was clear. If not, no harm done. The two women got to work listing the foods Bob was allowed to eat. This is going to be easy, Bridget thought. Now I’ve got to tell Bob. After a day or two, Bridget had figured out the best way to approach her husband with her idea. “Honey,” she said. “You remember Carolyn?” “You mean your sister’s husband’s dad’s friend’s wife? Yeah, I remember her.” “Good. Did you know she has Celiac Disease?” “You know what, I must have missed that detail. What is Celiac Disease?” “She’s can’t eat wheat.” “Wheat? That’s a bummer. No bread? No cereal? Too bad for her.” “Yes, too bad. Whenever she eats anything with gluten in it, she gets bad cramps and diarrhea. She had Bob’s attention now. “Say that again?” he said. She told him Carolyn’s symptoms. They sounded an awful lot like his. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked. “That I might have the same thing? That I’m intolerant of wheat?” “Here’s what I’m thinking. You go one week without eating anything with gluten in it. No bread, no beer, no pasta. Liz thinks that if you have the same thing as Carolyn, you’ll feel better. If not after a week, you’re no worse off.” “I don’t know. The colectomy was supposed to cure everything. I don’t want to get my hopes up again.” “You don’t have to do anything with your hopes. Just stop eating wheat.” Bob thought about it for all of three seconds. “Let’s give it a try,” he said. Three days later, Bob stopped taking his medicine.