To quote the late, great Erma Bombeck, “I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”

I can still remember waking up in my grandmother’s house to the intoxicating smells drifting from her kitchen. Sunday breakfast meant bacon and eggs, hand-cut hash browns, and—Lord Almighty—her sausage gravy. Gravy so thick and rich it could have been a meal on its own. The memory of her pan gravy slathered over fried pork chops and buttered mashed potatoes still leaves me weak in the knees. Truth is, I get a little misty-eyed just thinking about it.

My romance with food and cooking began in her kitchen. My maternal grandmother was my muse, and I was her sous chef. In the mid-1970s, around the age of four, I got my first real kitchen job: cutting homemade biscuits with a Sure Fine orange juice can. I rolled and cut the dough while Grandma made sausage gravy from a slurry of flour and a few tablespoons of rendered pork fat. My grandpa built me a small wooden step stool—one I still have—so I could reach the counter and take part in her creations.

I also set the table for whichever aunts, uncles, or cousins showed up to feast on Friday or Saturday nights. I felt useful. Loved. Proud.

It wasn’t that my grandma loved to cook—she didn’t. Back then, eating out was expensive, microwaves didn’t exist, and there were no meals ready in thirty minutes or less. Food required effort. Hands got dirty. What she did love was having her family around her. She found satisfaction in feeding those hungry souls, in watching them gather, nourished by her food, sharing stories and laughter.

In the early ’90s, I left for college and quickly realized I was one of the rare few—aside from my friend Amy—who knew how to do more than boil water for mac and cheese. My junior year, my roommates and I stayed on campus for Thanksgiving and hosted our own Friendsgiving. With a guest list of twenty-two, it was the largest crowd I’d ever cooked for. Though it was mostly potluck, I handled the essentials: the turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy (of course), plus a sausage stuffing worthy of my friends’ mothers and grandmothers.

The following spring, a roommate told me about a cooking job at a hip new brewpub and urged me to apply. I went the next day and was hired as a prep cook. I was in heaven. Beyond keeping the line stocked, I became a knife-work ninja. I learned the difference between béchamel and beurre blanc. I became an alchemist of soups and salads. Within months, I asked to move up to the line. The chef agreed, and I became the only female line cook in the restaurant.

A few years later, I left the high-stress pace of restaurant life and landed at a joyful, hippie-leaning health food store. Suddenly I was learning about antioxidants, micronutrients, and the healing power of herbs. I stocked my kitchen with seitan, TVP, and acidophilus. I ate kefir cheese, spirulina, and lived on tofu burritos. I learned I didn’t need to eat animals for protein or iron. I became a vegetarian—and felt reborn.

But as they do, all good things ended.

After college, I returned home for grad school and moved back in with my parents. My dad, convinced I was “too thin,” took me out for real food at his favorite barbecue joint. Begrudgingly, I gagged down a few ribs and spent hours afterward with stomach pain. I tried to eat well when I could, but working full-time while attending grad school full-time made convenience seductive. Drive-thrus were easier. I told myself I’d get back to healthy eating later.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Until my late twenties, I was the picture of health. I could eat McDonald’s, drink beer, and have a midnight snack whenever I wanted. I never gained a pound. Then, at twenty-nine, I got married. After two years of cheese-and-sausage dinners, boxed wine, and more than a few microbrews with my new husband, I’d gained sixteen pounds. Two kids later, I was up another fifteen.

But it was baby number three, at forty-one, that changed everything.

The weight wouldn’t come off. And then I started getting sick—really sick.

After countless late-night Google searches, I finally stumbled onto the idea that I’d had silent reflux during my last pregnancy. In other words, I had GERD without the classic burning sensation—no heartburn to point the way. Likely caused by a hiatal hernia, the reflux triggered my bronchial nerve and set off severe asthma-like attacks. I was prescribed inhaled steroids and albuterol for the final months of pregnancy. I had my own nebulizer. I made more than one trip to the emergency room because I couldn’t breathe.

But because the root cause—reflux, not asthma—was never identified, nothing the doctors prescribed helped. In fact, it made things worse. The steroids sent my blood sugar soaring, landing me with gestational diabetes and daily insulin shots. Overnight, I became a high-risk pregnancy. I was seen twice a week by a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and underwent weekly ultrasounds.

In the end, I delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl—six pounds, eleven ounces.

But by then, my list of chronic illnesses was just beginning to grow.

Me on the end holding Avery.

I lived with a relentless post-nasal drip cough and repeated bouts of sinusitis from chronic congestion. Every night—everynight—I woke for hours, drinking water just to clear my throat. By morning, I was exhausted and foggy, dragging myself through the day. During that first year after the baby was born, my doctor prescribed antibiotics four separate times.

The joint pain was worse. Both knees hurt so badly that I underwent a procedure called PRP. The pain in my hands became unbearable—I could barely bend my fingers without recoiling. I was told I might be standing at the edge of either rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

My menstrual cycles were a crime scene. I was afraid to leave the house on the first day because the bleeding was so extreme. Severe iron deficiency followed. My nails cracked and split. My hair stopped growing. I became short of breath just walking up the stairs.

I was miserable.
I had become a shadow of the person I once was.

Then, one afternoon at my chiropractor’s office, I started coughing. I apologized and explained that I was constantly congested, that the drainage worsened whenever I lay on my back. He paused, looked at me, and asked a question no one else had.

Had I ever been tested for a dairy allergy?

He suggested I meet with his wife, a chiropractor and nutritionist, and consider comprehensive food allergy testing. Before I left, I scheduled the appointment—and the blood draw.

I had no idea that brief, offhand conversation would change my life forever.

Next time on All Shook Up…
The IgG blood test—and the results I never saw coming.