Last week after the skin biopsy appointment, I kind of had a meltdown.  Thankfully, I have a boss who didn’t fire me on the spot for my total instability.

It’s  not even worth retelling the tale, but nutshell:  the dermo couldn’t do a biopsy and unless I happen to have a serious blister attack when I’m within five miles of his office, he can’t do one.

And this is what I’ve realized:  I find not caring to be one of the most offensive actions on the planet.  Like, tell me you’re stupid.  Tell me I’m stupid.  Tell me you don’t know how to help me.  Tell me to find another doctor.  But…care.  Or act like you give a fuck about me, just as a human being, if only on the most base of levels.

I’ve just reached my limit with people who are unkind.  I know that “mean people suck” is a trite expression but you know, they really, really do.  I’m just done with mean people-it’s an advantage of being in your thirties.  You no longer suffer fools.

As therapy, I spent two days cleaning our garage.  It is a job of epic proportion and it isn’t done yet but there is something so satisfying in throwing things out, consolidating, making things prettier.  Putting everything in its place both in the garage and my mind; it gives me a feeling of semblance and control, which is something I really needed.

I have this tendency of letting anxiety, aggravation, pain build up instead of addressing it on an incident-by-incident basis.  I don’t ask for what I need and then I encounter some sixty-seven year-old skin doc who wants to get me out of his office within five minutes so he can collect my co-pay and get to the business of practicing his short game and I just sort of implode.

Enough of that fuckery.  Other exciting things on the horizon…

I’ve been in a weird space with food.  Because of the Celiac disease and the pain and anxiety that food now causes me, I have this fear of eating anything other than the five safe foods I’ve discovered.  And you really cannot live that way.  I mean, Ore Ida mini tater tots are the best, but I’ve had it with shredded potatoes.  Now, my newest thing is meat.  I don’t know how this happened but I can’t eat meat.  The thought of eating something that has bones in it, or once had bones, makes me dry heave.  I can’t even watch Chopped on Food Network without gagging.

Instead of totally freaking the freak out, I’m taking it as a sign that my body is speaking to me.  It’s time for a change and I can’t believe it but maybe this change is vegetarianism?  The one thing I can’t fathom giving up is bacon.  I have no respect whatsoever for the pig.  But I may make the full leap.  I don’t know yet.

I’ve been wanting to really get back on track with clean eating and fitness because I know I need to take the next steps with my site and start more promoting and vlogging.  Yes, friends, videos of me talking about all sorts of random topics!  To do this, I need to feel like I’m in tip-top shape, physically and mentally.  Oh, and not too much info yet but there may be some TV and radio opportunities for me through Evil Beet, so self-confidence is something I need to be focused on.

Kids are good, Aspie is home on vacation this week and has been walking around in his robe all day like Hef, Veruca is flipping out because she says she can’t move her eyes (she can) and that means she’s no longer growing (she is) and Devil Dog just passed Veruca in the body weight and shoe size game.

I went to the doctor.  Huge and high anxiety as I mentioned before.  But guess what?  The dude was totally awesome.  He listened and didn’t make me feel rushed.  He wasn’t condescending and he didn’t claim to know it all.  He was impressed that I had done so much advocating and research on behalf of my own good health and never looked at me like I was some whack job who diagnoses themselves off of Internet research.  At one point, he disputed something that I thought was fact.  He researched it right in front of me and admitted that I was right and he was wrong.  I appreciate that in a man.

Here’s the funny part.  He totally is ready to diagnose me with Celiac Disease and I find this shocking.  If you’ve followed through this maze, six months ago, after seventeen years of feeling like hell, I decided to eliminate all gluten from my diet.  Last summer I started to notice that when I got my carbs from greens instead of grains, every symptom that I suffered for so many years seemed to vanish.  Now, I’m no doctor, but this seemed like pretty solid evidence that I had a gluten intolerance.  And without going into all the many symptoms of Celiac Disease, I have many of them.  And every single one of them have disappeared since going gluten-free.  Unfortunately, whenever I eat, my skin blisters.  It’s like being burned with a match-extremely painful.  Intensely painful.  This is what really prompted me to start the search again for a doctor.  After listening to the history and taking a twenty second look at my skin, the doctor agreed with me that it really looks like dermititis herpetiformis-the Celiac rash.  There is one treatment for it, but it’s majorly serious medication, like…methamphetamine serious, so I have to have a biopsy next week to confirm that what I am suffering from is specifically DH.  I feel closer to answers and that makes me feel better.  But it’s still so surprising when you actually hear it from someone who went to college for twelve years.  Like, I listened to my (totally damaged) gut, I’ve spent days of my life researching, educating myself, changing my entire life and I was so right to do so.

I also was able to discuss the anxiety I am suffering from.  The human mind is an interesting thing and I find myself feeling an actual fear when I am hungry and know I need to eat.  Fearful because I know that I am fifteen minutes away from pretty excruciating pain.  It’s a dangerous dynamic for me to be in the middle of.  I’ve always had food issues and now eating has become such a “thing” which isn’t a healthy space for me.  Dr. Wonderful suggested several things including meds and cognitive behavior modification.  He’s left the decisions to me; I have a lot to think about.  My hope is that if I can get the skin and pain condition under control, the anxiety around eating will dissipate.  If not, I’ll go the med route.  I’m sleeping approximately ninety minutes a night right now-that needs to change.

This has been really hard for me to go through.  Thank you to all of you who have emailed or commented or even just read and sent a thought my way.  It actually has made a huge difference in not feeling so alone in this.

Finally, and I’m not ready to share too much detail on this yet, I may also be having some mayjah surgery.  I’ll talk more about that when I know for sure and rest assured, I will be posting what hospital I am at so you can all send me chocolate….but, again, more life-changing fucking stuff.  I’m really ready for some boredom.

When we last met, we were determining if I look black.  Or Cape Verdean, which my Evil Beet editor thought was a nationality I made up.  Believe me, if I was creating fictional nationalities, I could do better than Cape Verdean.  Like…Flamingish or Azulean. 

I received an email from an old friend today letting me know that, back in high school, yes…it was a topic of conversation amongst my peers.  Can you imagine how that must have gone?  “Hey, you know that chick Wendie Tobin?  Yeah, she’s black.”  Hmmm…and?  But I’m not black, Hispanic or anything else exotic.  Not even Flamingish.

You asked for more pics so here are a couple.  I took them both myself because the people in my life fear photographing me.  And with good reason.  I have a distant cousin who still has an SD card lodged in their colon. 

Picture one is leaving the hairdressers after getting my hated haircut.

Picture two is post-party, in my writing chair (I do ALL my writing in that chair).  I was really, really sick having inadvertently ingested gluten in the form of white flour.

Both pictures are really scary as I have ZERO makeup on except for lipgloss.  Really NSFPA (not suitable for public appearances).

Goal for 2009?  Smiling!

Here’s the deal:  Got the gluten out and I feel great.  I know for a fact that I have accidentally glutened myself two times and have totally felt the effect from that.  But now, I’ve become like a wheat free bipolar.  I feel terrific.  But not just terrific.  Like…amazing.  Like sex without the cuddling.  And then I crash.  Exhausted.  Bitchy.  Why is everyone so stupid?  Well that’s always been a valid question but now I’m asking it out loud.  Now that I’m thinking about it, I felt this exact same way when I took Wellbutrin for two weeks.  Does Wellbutrin have wheat in it?  And I am broken out all over the upper half of my body.  Basically my trunk but I don’t want to say trunk because of the pachydermal implications.  Then I cycle again and can’t stop organizing things. 

So what the hell is going on?  I read that sometimes more food allergies present themselves as allergens are removed from your system.  And I really can’t handle being more of a social pariah than I already am.  You’d think I’d be more concerned with my health.  But my only rumination is that if I am allergic to dairy, I’m taking myself off the planet.  Life without cheese is a complete oxymoron.