Marie Carter

Topics discussed

Common childhood symptoms
Food labeling
Finding gluten-free food

Video Text

When she – before she was 6 weeks old, she – I was changing diapers that were black, sticky tar. And I thought this wasn’t right, but I had read some things in a baby book saying sometimes baby’s diapers were like that, not realizing that – not at 6 weeks were they like that – that was when a baby was first born. And then I noticed also that she would kick and scream and when she kicked her little feet would just jab out and she would try to turn circles when I was holding her.

She was such a fussy baby – there were very few times when she was happy. Or that she would get down, maybe on the floor and just play. She did not do those thing.

No one understood. No one was with us for 24 hours a day. Even my husband wasn’t home 24 hours a day. No one was up with her all night long. I was. And I kept on saying “Something’s not right.” And in my mind I kept saying, “There’s something wrong with this child. What did I do?” I would go back to the thoughts of my pregnancy for her and I only gained 12 pounds for her. I thought, “I must have done something wrong.” So I kept thinking, “Oh this is my fault. Whatever has happened to her, it’s my fault. I did something to her.”

We were taking her to the doctor very often because she had what looked like allergies of – just – a runny nose constantly, ear infections constantly. We wouldn’t wait two weeks to get back from the doctor sometimes before she needed to be seen again. He had suggested that we take her off wheat. Well we didn’t really know all the things that wheat’s in, we didn’t know when we looked at all the ingredients how – we didn’t know what we were looking for. Well, when our doctor agreed that the gluten-free diet was healthy for her and that it was OK for us to try it we began to get better at looking at labels. And we began to really eliminate a lot of things that we were not sure of.

And about a month after we did that, we saw a completely different child. It was unbelievable still to this day. I almost get tears thinking about it because she came down out of my arms and went on the floor – I can still tell you in our house, where I was standing and where I saw her wanting to play with something on the floor. She had not done that. And this was at about 14, 15 months.

As she became an upper elementary age, she began to gain a little bit of weight which – this was like a joyous time for us. Because all those times when we took her to the doctor, like every week, have her weighed and if she gained an ounce, we were just having a celebration. And then we saw her go into the teenage years and as we – we just saw her healthier, and her little face – her skin was healthier. Her eyes would sparkle, where before they were almost a dull look. And now, she beautiful. She’s graduating from college. And it just feels good to see her have gone through all of that and to see her become a very normal adult. And to look at her right now, you would NOT know. You would not be able to tell.

I’m Marie Carter. My daughter is 22 years old. She has Celiac Disease. And we are living our life.

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