My family is full of hypochondriacs

I mean it.

My sister Becky Sue calls me the other day (I should note she has not called me in probably five months, so this did throw me off guard) to ask if I knew if Wendy was part of a co-op.... Something about whole cow or goat milk? Anyway, for a reason unknown to me, several people in my family are getting into this thing where they want to drink organic milk, grind wheat to make their own bread, blah blah blah. It's odd to me, but I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that everyone in my family is odd in his or her own way. I tell her I don't know about Wendy RE: the co-op thing. (NOTE: It should be apparent to most that my sister Wendy is an enigma. I very rarely know where she is--mentally and physically--on any given day.)

Becky continues with the "why" of her call. Her husband woke her up several days ago to have her watch a story on the news on a condition called celiac sprue. Do a search for it, and you can see the symptoms; some of the most familiar to me are depression, irritability, menstrual irregularity... Some of the more severe manifestations that have happened in my family are pancreatic cancer, diverticulitis, colitis, and Crohn's disease. The current belief, in Becky's mind, is that half of our family has this condition, and that we can control it by being on a gluten-free diet. It all seems sort of silly to put into words now, but it does make a bit of sense given it's fairly common (and very misdiagnosed) condition in families of Irish/Scotch heritage.

I don't feel like I have these sort of intestinal-type symptoms, but I sure do feel the depression thing. But I can honestly say that I'd be depressed even if I hadn't had a baby or I wasn't potentially dealing with some sort of genetic auto-immune disease (celiac sprue). I have legitimate issues, so to deal it on a disease alone would be ridiculous.

That being said, I wouldn't mind trying to be tested to see if I have this. None of the more severe manifestations are very nice at all, and if I can avoid bringing those things on myself, that would be good. Eating gluten-free would be pretty awful, but I'd do it if it meant saving myself this junk in the future.

***

I got to have a nice, long talk with Beth when I went to visit her on Saturday and Sunday. I finally put to words what I've been holding inside for seven years. She's seen so much drama in her life that nothing I say can shake her, so she actually had some encouragement for me. She was encouraging me to have this big talk with Billy to get communication lines open about everything. So I did. I had a talk with Billy Sunday night, and I thought it had gone over as well as I could hope, but last night he apparently forgot what we were talking about. I guess last night I got this feeling like things weren't ever going to change, and I ended up sleeping on the couch at the verge of taking off to drive somewhere, anywhere. The good news is that Billy understood why I was upset, and we're okay now...

I don't know what the solution is to my problem, but I know it's not living life as I have been. I will continue to pray, and hopefully God will make something *click* sooner rather than later. I am not convinced that is solely my problem, and I do believe Billy is part of the root of the problem. I have to find a way to forgive and move on because seven years is enough time.

I guess it just makes me upset because I was having a fairly okay day yesterday until all of this happened. It could have been avoided.