Thursday, April 16, 2009

Where's the Gluten? or A Touch of Serendipity

I was supposed to go on a field trip today with the lower school. We were headed to a bilingual theater performance in Washington, DC. After we returned, I was going to broadcast the dvd of my 4th graders' news program, which they had been working on over the past couple of weeks. I burned the dvd yesterday right before I left school. This morning, before going on the field trip, I tested out the dvd, and it had a problem. The sound wasn't tracking with the movements. So I had to re-save it from windows movie maker in a different format, and reburn the dvd. All of which was going to take more time than the 20 minutes I had before the busses left on the field trip.

My boss said it was okay, there were enough teachers on the trip, just go ahead and work on the broadcast. So I got the problem fixed, and had just finished burning the last of the dvds to give to the kids when my cell phone rang.

It was Daniel's school nurse, calling to let me know that he had just lost his lunch and had terrible stomach pains.

If I had gone on the field trip, I wouldn't have been able to rush out of school to go get Daniel. I would have been stuck downtown, waiting for the school bus to take me back. Frustrated as I was with the dvd this morning, I was so happy that it kept me close to my car!

Daniel thought he was glutened somehow, because he threw up right after eating lunch. But everything in his lunch was packed by me, and it was leftovers of stuff that he had before. Baked beans and rice. Gluten free corn chips. A kiwi. A choco-loco bar (GF). He said he started feeling really sick when he was eating the kiwi, and that he didn't want kiwis in his lunch anymore.

I wondered if he was suddenly allergic to kiwi. Or if there was gluten on the table, and it got on his hands, and in his mouth when he ate the kiwi. He said that he and his friends were throwing around some Easter candy. Sometimes candy has gluten on it to keep it from sticking. Maybe that was the case. Anyway, we can't figure out where the gluten came from, if it was gluten. It could have been a stomach bug. After going low, having sugar, rebounding high, and taking pepto bismol, he's on the mend now.

He can make up that major test that he missed tomorrow.

2 comments:

Kelly said...

Oh man, funny how missing the field trip was a "good" thing! I can't imagine the stresses of Celiac disease...you are an amazing mother! A diabetes mother, a TEACHER....have a nice night for YOU tonight!

Naomi said...

Thanks! I've gotten 2 out of three kids to bed and poured a glass of wine. Whew! I'm ready for quiet time. Keep your fingers crossed!