Celiac Mom: One Family’s Gluten-Free Journey After a Daughter’s Diagnosis
An engaging memoir, packed full of helpful resources! If you, your child, or someone you love has been diagnosed with celiac disease, order or download a copy of Celiac Mom today!
Listen to Ann’s Interview with McGill EXMD509 Students, dedicated to bringing awareness to the challenges of living with celiac disease.
This book tells the story of Ann Campanella’s daughter’s celiac diagnosis and the family’s subsequent transition to a gluten-free lifestyle. Ann says, “It was one of the hardest, but most rewarding, experiences of my life.”
As a two-year-old, Ann Campanella’s daughter barely registers on the pediatric growth chart, rarely naps and has intense stomachaches after eating. Doctors and well-meaning friends repeatedly assure Ann that Sydney will outgrow these issues. But at the age of five, Sydney finally receives a celiac diagnosis.
Celiac Mom charts the course of one mother who is determined to keep her daughter safe from gluten, a substance that is literally poisoning her. A noncook, Ann must figure out how to nourish Sydney and avoid painful gluten exposures. She reveals the ups and downs of creating gluten-free habits revolving around family and friends, holidays, vacations, school lunches, summer camps and more. As Sydney matures, Ann must ultimately learn to let go and allow her daughter to make her own choices in a gluten-filled world.
– first clues that there might be something wrong
– age of diagnosis
– support for celiac families at that time
– first steps to going gluten free
– putting a focus on cooking
– how friends and family reacted
– moving from a traditional school to a small private school to home-schooling back to a traditional school
– 3 years of sending Sydney to summer camp
– finding friends – as a parent and as a celiac child
– navigating family vacations & holiday travel
– possible remission in adolescence
– reactions to gluten return
– daughter as a young adult, preparing for college
– could there be celiac disease in extended family
All of these questions and more will be answered by this engaging memoir. Celiac Mom takes the reader by the hand and leads him/her from pre-diagnosis through the transition to gluten-free living.
The book also includes:
- Two weeks of easy gluten-free recipes
- Favorite family recipes from well-loved chefs
- Helpful people, websites and products
- Gluten-free shopping lists
- Ideas for eating out safely
* International Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award Winner 2022
* 2020 Indies Today Award Finalist
* Recommended Read, Indies Today
* 2020 Wishing Shelf Book Awards Finalist
About Ann Campanella
Formerly a magazine and newspaper journalist, Ann Campanella has been writing nonfiction, memoir and poetry for over 30 years. Before her mother became ill with Alzheimer’s, Ann and her husband lived in Houston, TX, where she rode horses and worked as the executive editor of a community newspaper and as the managing editor of a daily paper.
Ann is the author of two memoirs and four collections of poetry. Her writing has appeared in literary journals, newspapers and magazines across the country and around the world, and she has discussed her work on numerous podcasts.
Her first memoir, Motherhood: Lost and Found, has won numerous awards and was named “One of the best Alzheimer’s books of all time” by Book Authority. In 2018, Ann was recognized by her hometown newspaper as one of the Most Influential Women in her community. She is a manager and director of AlzAuthors.com, a website that represents over 300 authors of books about Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Ann has a degree in English Literature from Davidson College and lives on a small farm with her family and animals in North Carolina.
For more information about Ann and her books, please see:
