Poisoned By Fate

No my dear! This apple is fine! No Gluten here! No poison!
 Eat it! Eat it! BITCH, EAT THE APPLE!

I was glutened last week. This may seem like a little thing to you gluten eaters. "Ohhhh okay, so you had a tummy ache Laurie, get over it." Not so much. It's hard to describe the illness that comes with a Celiac accidentally consuming gluten. It's a vicious, nasty, debilitating, emotional experience. It's a poisoning, plain and simple. I don't necessarily wish to relive the event but I think it's important for us to discuss how this all happened.

I have been using the Superstore Click and Collect service for several months and it has been a game changer. You pick all your groceries online and then drive to the store and pick it all up from a swanky parking spot. I freaking love it. It has opened up so much extra time for me, time that I have spent drunk on Pintrest, which I'm sure you agree is vital. In general, the service has been great and the people who work there have been amazing. 

We had an incident on Monday though and it was a result of a "Butterfly Effect" type of situation. The Butterfly Effect is a weird movie from 2004 that you think you understand and then you realize that you are stupid. Basically, the theory is that one little thing (the flapping of a butterfly wing) can set off a chain reaction that eventually leads to catastrophe (a hurricane) on the other side of the world. Anyone who has been in a car accident has thought about this theory. If you had left 3 seconds earlier, if you hadn't liked the song on the radio and wasn't singing at the top of your lungs, and further, if the DJ had not been feeling nostalgic that day and not chosen that particular song, if the other driver had remembered to bring a snack for her kids and then they wouldn't have been screaming in the backseat causing her to be distracted. If ANY these things had happened differently, you wouldn't have collided with that woman's minivan on the way home from work. 

This glutenizing was kind of like that. I had ordered the gluten free version of the Club House Brown Gravy, which is awesome by the way, and instead, received the  NON gluten free version. I made the gravy, ate the gravy and within moments, knew something was wrong. We checked the package and low and behold, not gluten free. FUCK!

So, there was this little window of time I had during which we planned out the next twenty four hours while I was still able to function. Since the spawn are on summer vacation, plans needed to be cancelled, the sheets on the bed were changed because I would now spend all my time there, the dishes were done quickly so husband could focus on me and nothing else for the next seven hours. Heating pads were charged up for the cramps, cold cloths prepared for the splitting headache and the bathroom deemed off limits for the vomiting and ...well...you know. God Bless my husband and our spawn for their extreme support and dedication to me during times like this. I don't like being sick, I get really cranky and weepy and they handle it all with ease and care.

And during all this flurry of activity, I went through my own little butterfly effect list. What if the worker doing the shopping had paid closer attention and why didn't they? Had she just stubbed her toe so she was thinking of the agonizing pain rather than reading the label? And before that, what if the guy who stocked the shelves hadn't been lazy, leaving that box in the middle of the floor so she stubbed her toe? What if I hadn't been on the phone when I went to pick up the order and had noticed when we were loading the groceries into the trunk? What if I had made that phone call later in the day or that when I called, the person had decided to take their dog for a walk and didn't answer? What if I hadn't been chatting with hubby while making dinner and I happened to notice the label? What if he had left work 20 min later so he wasn't home while I was making the gravy and didn't distract me with his charm and good looks? 

What if?

Ultimately though, there is no point going through the Butterfly Effect because you can only suck it up. Suck it up hard bitches.

I was sick sick sick for a full 24 hours and then feeling like a hung over bag of shit for two days after that. I try to take a lesson from every glutenizing, and  the lesson here is:

A) Having Celiacs fucking sucks

B) Don't trust anyone else to read a label that you should read yourself because they might have just stubbed their toe

C) Read every label, every time.

D) Sometimes fate is not in your favor and that has to be okay

We wrote a letter to Click and Collect and I was shocked to receive a phone call from the store manager Cheryl. She was completely apologetic and really kind about the whole thing. I honestly half expected some sort of, "we can't guarantee...blah blah" bullshit but she took full responsibility for the whole thing. She made it clear that she had dealt with the employee directly and had given retraining on the issue. She even took it a step further and has contacted the Club House company to talk about how similar the two packages look and how hard it might be for anyone to tell them apart when shopping.

Gluten Version

Gluten Free Version

Look at these two packages! Seriously, they couldn't make them more alike if they tried!

Cheryl even discussed the placement of the boxes on the shelves with her team and has moved them around to make it easier to tell them apart. I was blow away and am now a dedicated customer.

So bottom line, poisonings happen bitches...whether it's your fault or another person's fault or the Butterfly Effect of fate at play but it's just a part of having this disease.

 It's hard to suck it up but tough shit Celiac....suck it up.

PS A HUGE THANK YOU TO OUR FRIENDS KARIN AND GLENN FOR TAKING MY CHILDREN FOR THE ENTIRE NEXT DAY SO I COULD SLEEP AND FEEL SORRY FOR MYSELF IN PRIVATE. BLESS YOUR HEARTS.