Inadvertant gluten ingestion; Disability

Most of this past weekend I spent in bed, recovering from an inadvertent ingestion of gluten. At my mother's on Friday, friends brought broiled salmon (cooked with just a bit of lemon juice) & broiled root vegetables to share. One would think both dishes would be fine, yes? I checked; no gluten-containing ingredients in the salmon. Definitely should have looked at the veges. However, I suspect that the culprit was the grill itself.

So I spent the entire weekend sleeping on & off, listening to the radio, watching "When Harry Met Sally" (for the first time!), checking the computer (email & Facebook), & sleeping some more. I had no appetite at all, so I drank lots of seltzer & ate a little bit of soy "ice cream" Saturday night.

Having an adverse reaction to gluten feels like I have mononucleosis, a virus I did have in high school & college. My body feels like limp spaghetti. No appetite at all, with slight underlying nausea lingering, & that gets worse when I try to think about food. My brain / mind works at 33.33 rpm speed, when I prefer to work at 78 rpm (for those of you who remember phonograph records [vinyl]). Basically, the synapses fire at such a reduced speed that even when I'm not asleep, I may as well be. No concentration, so reading is impossible. The only reason I got through "When Harry Met Sally" was because it was funny, light, & didn't require much thinking. I loved the music & the repeated references to the film "Casablanca." Watching the scenes with food was hard, so I didn't pay attention to what they were eating.

For someone with Celiac Disease / gluten intolerance, eating gluten is tantamount to eating poison. My entire body reacts & I end up down for 2 days, in large part because my system now is so gluten-free. So I guess I should be glad that I react so strongly & negatively. Rather than have another episode, from now on, no food outside of my own home unless I've either (1) purchased it myself or (2) know that it has come from a gluten-free place, e.g., PF Chow's Gluten-Free Menu.

I've begun to wonder about something that I haven't heard mentioned on news reports about Haiti. This earthquake has left hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people with severe disabilities: crushed limbs, amputations, possibly fractured spines resulting in paraplegia or quadriplegia. What will happen to all of those people? Who will help them? What will the US & other countries do? What international organizations / agencies are thinking about this & beginning to consider planning for the long-term future for the hundreds of people who may not be able to work again?