Thanks for taking the time to visit mine and Arjun's JustGiving page. 

As most of you know, Arjun was diagonsed with coeliac disease about a year ago - that's a picture of Arjun opening his birthday presents for his 3rd birthday in May 2011 when we didn't really know what was wrong with him.  At the time, he had lost a lot of weight (if you look closely you can see how thin his arms were, the rest of his body was the same), his stomach was swollen and he had no energy (to the point that we had to carry him up the stairs) and he was being sick after most meals.   

It took a few months, however, after a couple of visits to the GP, a couple of blood tests and a biopsy, Arjun was diagnosed as having coeliac disease (meaning that Arjun can never eat gluten i.e. wheat, rye and barley malt).  Initially, the diagnosis was a sort of relief but then we realised we had to go away and find out how we could make Arjun better and how we would need to manage his diet going forward - that was where Coeliac UK came in. 

Coeliac UK is a charity which helps provide coeliac sufferers with support and information about coeliac disease.  Once we got in touch with them, we realised just how much of Arjun's (and our own) diet(s) we were going to have to change.  Arjun will never be able to eat or drink anything that contains gluten. 

SO, that means he can't have (to name a few obvious things) bread, pasta, biscuits, cake, sausages, burgers, beer (once he's old enough!) or chocolate that contains gluten.  This has meant huge changes in the way that we, as a family, prepare and eat food whether at home or when we are out.  My Mum was also diagnosed  with coeliac disease in later life, however, it was only after Arjun getting ill did I realise just how serious coeliac disease can be.

Dealing with Arjun's condition is an everyday issue and having the support of Coeliac UK is invaluable.  If you go to their website (www.coeliac.org.uk), you'll see just how much work they do and the assistance and support that they provide coeliac sufferers which isn't readily available through the NHS.  Some of the key things that they do which we have found invaluable are things like producing a directory of all of the foods that Arjun (and other coeliac sufferers) can have and they also run a helpline which provides support and advice no matter what the issue is (again a service which has been invaluable especially given some of the conflicting advice we initially received).  

Given how much Coeliac UK do for people with coeliac disease, it's only right that I find a bit of time to embarass myself and do a 10K in quite a slow time!  So please do follow the instructions below and give a little bit of cash to Coeliac UK so that they can continue to help Arjun, my Mum and thousands of others.

Gurinder & Arjun.

P.S. There are also a couple of pictures of Arjun taken a couple of weeks ago, and as you can see, he is much better!

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