Emily L BPS

                           This is my mind map the 2nd time I did it:

                                 

I’ve got a voki!!! A voki is basically a character that you can dress and make it say something. I’m really excited about mine and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do! Please make a comment either on this post or on my voki!

 I would do anything for my dream job which I have been wanting to do for a long time. It is a career that I have set my mind on for about 4 years now and I would like to do it when I am older. It is to be a dietitian specialising in coeliac disease. By doing this, I would be able to help others with following the diet and being able to help people who know or think that they might have coeliac disease with any issues that they had. Because of all of the issues that my mum (Sally Learey) had with trying to figure what the matter was with my brother and I, I think that I would be able to solve peoples’ problems that they had quite easily (due to the fact that I would have heaps of background knowledge by then).

 I would also really like to write a book like my mum did (her book was a children’s picture book titled Food For Me Is Gluten Free) and help raise the awareness of coeliac disease even more. I would try to get it in many newspapers and magazines. The message I would like to get across to everyone is to be aware of coeliac disease and to not be afraid of someone who has coeliac disease ’cause all the have to do, is eat gluten free food - they’re hardly different to many people who have allergies or who know someone who has an allergy.

 So now you know the two goals that I would like to achieve. By doing so, I just want to help raise awareness of coeliac disease and tell everyone that coeliacs are basically the same as everyone else  !  

Here are some sites that have information about coeliac disease on them:

• http://www.coeliacsociety.com.au  
• http://www.vic.coeliac.org.au
• http://www.glutenfreeloot.com
• http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?Article=315
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
• http://www.virtualcancercentre.com/diseases.asp?did=486
• http://www.medicinenet.com/celiac_disease/article.htm

      I hope that you find these sites very useful. 

   Something that’s interesting about every object, thing or word is the meaning. The meaning for coeliac is “suffering in the bowels.” “Koiliakos” was the original word for “coeliac” in Greek.  Moving from Greek to Latin, the ’k’s’ became ’c’s’ and the ‘oi’ became ‘oe’. Taking out the usual Greek ending ‘os’ gave us the word coeliac.

 It is fascinating that knowledge of coeliac disease dates back as far as 10,000 years ago. Yet today, many people are still cluless on what coeliac disease really is.

 An interesting fact about coeliac disease is that on average 1 in 100 people are coeliacs. So, if you went to a school that had 400 people there (including teachers), 4 people would be coeliacs on average.

Info found at : http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0rel/hist.htm.  

 On Tuesday, the 27th of February, it was my Mum’s book launch. She launched her children’s picture book that she wrote. It is called ‘Food For Me Is Gluten Free.’  It was a very successful night and she managed to sell lots of books. A dietitian that my mum knows was her Keynote Speaker and this dietitian basically talked about what coeliac disease is, what the symptoms are, and other information about coeliac disease. My mum talked about our journey to coeliac disease (in my family) and how she came to writing Food For Me Is Gluten Free. It was heaps of fun and a good night to remember.        Below are some pictures from the night.

                  

Coeliac Awareness week was on the 13th of March to the 20th of March 2007. In this week, everyone who wanted to can help, could raise the awareness of coeliac disease. They could have done this by:

• hosting a gluten free morning tea
• talking about coeliac disease in the classroom or at work
• simply finding out what coeliac disease is and telling others about it

           or just being aware of coeliac disease.

On one day of Coeliac Awareness Week, my mum came to school and brought along the book she wrote so that my sister, my brother and I could all share it with our class mates.

Here is a picture of me and my mum reading ‘Food For Me Is Gluten Free’ (the book that my mum wrote).

     
               

Here is a picture of my brother reading Food For Me Is Gluten Free to his class in Coeliac Awareness Week.

 Even though coeliac diease is called  a disease, it isn’t really one. So if someone comes up to you and says “I’ve got coeliac disease,” you don’t need to get really scared and think that you’re going to catch it because in fact, you are born with coeliac disease!

 I think that you should grab a quick look at my mum’s book because it spills a secret that everyone needs to know! It also shows the ups and downs of being a coeliac plus what great fun it is when you are feeling better.

When I found out that I had coeliac disease, I was really scared because I thought that I had some weird, scary thing that was contagious. But after a while, I realised that it wasn’t contagious and that it wasn’t weird at all - it was completely normal to people that have it and to people who know about it! 

If there is anything that you would like to know more about, or find out about coeliac disease, please leave a comment on this post.  You are more than welcome to ask more about my journey to finding out how I became a coeliac, or just about basic information on coeliac disease. Give me a question and I will happily answer it for you.