The Grandparents have the kids this week, (thank you, thank you, thank you, R&A) and BG and I have been rediscovering couples dining, sleeping in on a Saturday and quietly, without interruption, reading.

Amazing. I have finished more books this week than in the last five days than in the last few months. I used to be a voracious reader.  I was a lit. major who took pleasure in reading five novels a week.

You heard me. I’m proud of that. I own my geek.  It’s been a loooong time since I even hit one novel, let alone five.

Hello Sandra Beasley. I picked up her “Don’t Kill The Birthday Girl” and it was at once memoir, science, history and current status of major allergens as they relate to our neighbours South of the 49th.  

But I could relate.

A has celiac disease. He (ironically) does not have any known allergies.  Sure, he is lactose intolerant for now, but once his villi heal, there’s no known cheese he can’t try.

Beasley’s book transported me to a place of both sisterhood and the realization that we are really lucky that gluten is our only enemy.  Much like visiting the GI clinic, which is soberingly placed beside the major organ transplant clinic, we are lucky.

A can be cured. A will be well. In the early months of an auto-immune diagnosis, books like Sandra’s comfortingly remind me there is a whole world of support available to us, whether online or in the very old-fashioned form of a book.

Thank you, R&A.

Thank you Sandra.