Billygean.co.uk

In case you’re new, my on/off relationship with Coeliac disease is detailed here, here, here, here and here.

“So, GingerDoctor says. “Shall we look at the results?”

I nod.

Three years gluten free, six months lactose free, three gluten challenges and two upper-GI endoscopies have led me up to this moment.

“There are fragments of duodenal mucosa showing normal villous architecture.”

“Right.”

“So that’s interesting,” he says, fiddling with his tie which keeps getting snagged on his stethoscope.

“… But what does it mean?”

“Negative!” He says with a laugh. “It’s negative.”

I look out of the window at the brilliant blue sky. I had known it would be negative. I have been eating gluten now since October and feel as well as I ever have. Well, since all this fatigue nonsense started, anyway.

“I used to be so sure,” I say now. We had separate toasters and separate butter and separate knives (quite normal for a Coeliac, I hasten to add). At one point I feared breadcrumbs more than viruses. I rang caterers at weddings and demanded different gravy spoons. I changed my toothpaste, avoided cakes and beer and bread, but other things too – coke and tomato ketchup and Philadelphia cheese.

I used to KNOW when I’d eaten it. Sickness would come first, then light-headedness for a few days, then the insatiable hunger. And now… Nothing. I am not even remotely gluten-intolerant, being able to eat an entire Domino’s pizza without the slightest bit of bloating.

Could it be that it was a nice hook to hang my illness on? A curable one, at that? It certainly did refocus my efforts elsewhere – on controlling my diet rather than the energy levels.

And we did learn so much along the way. Not only how people with Coeliac disease live – I have endless sympathy for those eating lettuce at a wedding buffet – but ABOUT food and about how cooking actually works. We cook from scratch naturally now; a habit.

“I have a theory,” GingerDoctor says now.

“Mmm?”

“I think you WERE intolerant,” he says, “back when you were… broken.”

I give a bitter smile at this.

“And now I’m…”

“And now you’re stronger – your body tolerates less sleep and viruses and wheat now – all the things which are not so good for bodies that are feeling slightly sensitive.”

“Interesting,” I say.

I gather my things. It would be a nice note on which to close my dealings with gastroenterology, but he wants to stick a tube up my bum just to double check I don’t have anything going on (oh god, oh god, what pants does one wear to a colonscopy? If any?).

I sit in the hospital foyer and treat myself to a scone and a (caffeinated) pot of tea. Because life is too short to be without scones and tea for no good reason.

It is a week ago.

I am standing in front of the mirror getting ready to straighten my hair. One of my highlighted bits catches the sunlight and I look at it briefly.

I shake my head and look again.

Something doesn’t look quite right.

I put my straightener down (ON MY HEAT-PROOF MAT, MindReader) and reach up to smooth my hair back from the parting.

It must just be exceptionally blonde, I think. So blonde that it’s… White.

I spend some time trying to get a grip of the hair and finally manage to pull it out. Of course. Who would leave it in?

It is definitely white. Not even grey – white. I run my fingers down its length. It feels like plastic. But it was definitely attached to my head.

You may be aware I have been here before. However that was nothing like this because:

1. Hair was of normal texture.
2. Hair was the blonde side of brown and not actually white.
3. I was only 21.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and have a small weep for the end of my youth, and then I do something a bit mad.

***
MindReader walks in the door and let it just be said that I am aware almost all of our conversations occur in the hallway when MindReader has not even taken off his shoes.

“I’ve seen your Facebook,” he says, holding up his freckled hands.

“Oh, good,” I say, “then you don’t need the background.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Let me see your hair,” I say, very intenseley standing very near to him.

I stand on the bottom step of the stairs and peer over MindReader’s head while he tries to take his coat off.

“Lots of blond hairs and not a single white one,” I say.

“Oh dear,” MindReader says. “At least my hair is receeding. You can dye yours.”

“I DO NOT NEED TO DYE MY HAIR.”

MindReader stares at me for a moment.

“Will you look at the hair? Just to make sure?”

MindReader peers at me whilst removing a shoe. “I can’t see a white hair.”

I blush. Here is that strange thing I did. “It’s not in my head,” I say.

I take MindReader’s hand and drag him up the stairs. He has one shoe on.

We go into our bedroom. “There.” I point to a box on the bed.

It’s a small red box, lined with red velvet.

“You put your hair… In a box?”

“Yes.”

MindReader opens the box and removes the hair.

It is whiter than white and I give a little shudder.

“You know what’s freakier than aging at 26?” MindReader says, raising his eyebrows.

“Hm?”

“Keeping your own hair in a box.”