<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

> wracked with complications.  Even though I gone to great lengths to
> pre-arrange gf meals, in the end, I did not receive them.  The moral to my
> story is: don't even trust the hospital!

Sally - so sorry to hear about your hospital stay.  One of my worst
nightmares is having to go into the hospital and trust the dietitians to make
the proper arrangements for gf meals for me.  I've been gf for nearly 4 years
now.  Over the course of that time, my mother has been in and out of the
hospital and whenever I go up to visit them, I have extreme difficulty
finding gf food to eat in the hospital cafeteria (I will only eat bananas,
boiled eggs still in the shell - I bring all the rest of my food and keep it
in a cooler in the car).

The first time I was at the hospital visiting my mom, I went and found the
head dietitian and the cafeteria supervisor and had to explain to them just
what a gluten-free diet is (I wasn't surprised that I had to explain that).
Even after all the discussions and explanations, they assured me of some
foods that I would be able to safely eat.  Within an hour of eating that
meal, I became quite ill and had to go back to my parents house to lay down
for several hours (they live 40 miles away from the hospital).  Since that
time, I do NOT trust what the dietitian says at the hospital as far as what
is gf and what is not.

Two months ago, my mom was in the hospital again for an extended stay and I
was staying over night at the hospital with her.  Well, meals were a
nightmare.  One day, they did not have boiled eggs on the cafeteria line and
so I asked if they could make some for me.  You'll never believe this but I
had to talk to 3 different people in order to get that done.  They initially
said they didn't have the "manpower" to make boiled eggs.  Good grief.  I
offered to go to a dept store to buy a pan and some eggs and then come back
into the kitchen to boil them myself.  Would you believe that they don't boil
their eggs in water but that they steam them?  It took 2 hours to get steamed
hard boiled eggs.  I found it highly ridiculous and if I hadn't have been
going through so many other things with my mom's health problems, I would've
written a complaint and screamed bloody murder about it.   In my initial
conversation with the nutritionist and the dietitian, they said I was lying
when I told them that I had had a terrible gluten reaction the last time I
ate food at the hospital - they said it was "impossible for something like
that to happen".

Anyway, it was difficult finding nutritious things to eat that didn't require
constant refrigeration or cooking....since I was staying at the hospital over
night for a week (not as a patient but staying in their hospitality rooms)
and my mom was too seriously ill for me to make time to go out to their house
to cook decent meals for myself, it was a nightmare.  A person can only eat
so many bananas, peanut butter and peanuts.  You'd think that a hospital
would be more conscientious about dietary restrictions.   I get more
consideration from local restaurants when ordering a gf meal.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to deal with this type of problem, I'd
love to hear it.  My Mom is still seriously ill and in and out of the
hospital and I'm sure I'll be facing this dilemma again.

Deb