Hello Everyone,
You might (or not) have noticed that the blog has been silent for quite some time. I have been going through a bit of a roller coaster and didn’t feel like blogging for a while. My roller coaster is heading upwards once again and i finally feel like sharing everything with y’all again (i’m watching Nashville on Netflix, i suddenly have an accent).
Let’s start at the beginning. For a long time now, my health hasn’t been very great. I’ve been tired and have a lot of migraines. I always shrugged it off and thought this hd to be normal and was a result of being a student. If I was a little more tired than most that might just be the result of a depression I had about 4-5 years ago, maybe I hadn’t bounced back as much as I thought. Surely everyone feels like this but never mentions it? The last 2-3 years it’s been getting more and more extreme. I’m always exhausted. Lately getting up in the morning was a chore. After being up for about an hour I would be desperate for a nap. I couldn’t concentrate on my studies and my migraines were getting more and more frequent. I also noticed some other issues were getting worse. My belly ached practically all the time for so long it became my normal and I stopped noticing it. I had a headache almost every day. Finally I started realizing this could not be normal for a 22 year old. I made an appointment to see a doctor and had some bloodwork done. My mom has a thyroid problem so we thought i might have thyroid issues too. Because i told the doctor I was worried about this she only ticked the boxes for thyroid tests on my bloodwork paper (we get a huge list of all possible blood tests and the dr ticks the ones you need). My mom thought we should test some of my vitamins too and so she ticked some extra boxes before we went to get blood drawn (you’re not supposed to really). Boy, am I glad she did! My results showed a pretty sever B12 deficiency. Usually you have enough to support you for 3 years in your blood and mine was pretty much used up. So I started using up my reserves right around the time my symptoms got worse. We now knew something was up or I wouldn’t have had such a huge deficiency. The doctor started me on weekly B12 shots to get me back on track and we started investigating what had caused the deficiency.
Its now turned out I have Celiac disease. The disease we always joked about because the Dutch name is pretty much unpronounceable (Coeliakie, pronounce Seu-li-aaaa-ki). There is no treatment apart from eating completely gluten free. With Celiac disease seating gluten damages your intestines until you can no longer absorb nutrients. This makes you more susceptible to all kinds of other nasty stuff. You have to go completely gluten free, you can’t ever sin as it will make you feel very sick.
It’s good to finally know what’s wrong with me and why i’ve been feeling so tired all the time. I’ve probably had the disease for a while as it can suddenly activate if you have the gene when you get sick etc. As a result my intestines are pretty damaged. I won’t feel back to my old self for a while, but the diet should make me feel more comfortable soon.
because this is going to be a huge impact on my life it will impact the blog as well. I want to write about being gluten free and my experiences too. But i would prefer to do so in Dutch. But the crafting parts of my blog are often read by people from all over the world… so i want those to be available in English. Right now I’m thinking of starting a new blog. In dutch. There i will write about my experiences with gluten and celiac disease and I will review products (i usually do budget stuff only available in the netherlands anyway). But I will also be writing about my crafty stuff there, with a English translation. I’m just going to try it out and see how it goes. I can’t start for another week yet as i still have finals to get through (pretty scary when you’re still dead tired and not really up to studying). However, i’m still a bit on the fence about this all. I’m starting a new (second) bachelors degree in September majoring in English and all about writing. That’s a pretty good motivation to keep blogging in English… But Recipes and such will become a big part of my new and improved blog and those will be much more efficient in Dutch as most products used will be Dutch.
I have another week to chose. I’ll let you know! By the way: Name idea’s are much welcomed! Although I am still partial to the current name as I use it everywhere!
I’m also moving house this weekend!
Love, Renée
A Lazy Beauty 