Oh, the gluten

Well, as most of my maybe four readers know by now, our boys have celiac disease. Honestly this doesn't impact our lives all that much -- we eat very little processed food, I take daily snacks to school for Connor, and we have to be careful at other people's homes and playgroups to minimize exposure, but that's not that hard really. The only thing that is really hard is those times when you've been running frantically, working hard and the Domino's number would be JUST SO EASY. Restaurants are usually a nightmare and more stressful than just going ahead and eating at home. Some restaurants are offering gluten free items now, which is an awesome advancement -- 20 years ago, you got handed a bag of rice cakes and shunted out of the doctor's office and you were on your own. But that's only great if the restaurant can really maintain gluten free protocols.

We went out to eat this past Saturday at Boston's Pizza. They have a wide selection of gluten free pizza and we previously ate there without incident. Not this time. By 3 hours after eating, Timmy was rejecting food and crying hysterically. By 4 hours after, we had projectile vomiting. By eight hours later, we had bloody vomit. And by 12 hours after, we had exhausted parents, 15 loads of laundry, diarrhea, and a stinky exhausted dehydrated baby. The vomiting STILL hasn't stopped 48 hours later, though it's nowhere near initial levels. I turned a whale eye toward Connor -- as soon Timmy came down off the initial pain wave, Connor began and suffered from belly pain and diarrhea. He said "Aladdin's monster" was eating his tummy. :-( We ended up keeping him home today to avoid having an embarrassing and painful accident in front of the other children, not to mention the attendant behavioral issues.

While the baby snoozed between Vesuvius-like fits, I wrote a scathingly polite letter to Boston's about the issue. I was not happy as you can imagine. After two hours of broken sleep and finally stumbling through a shower to wash off various effluvients, I wrote yet another message this morning. I had called the local Boston's on Sunday and was blithely assured that the owner had been in after a "call from corporate" but Mr Schmuckatelli who answered the phone couldn't give me anything more, not even an apology. Here's what I wrote in the latest message:

I wrote to your company on Saturday night after my children were glutened in your restaurant. I just wanted to give an update on the full impact of haphazard gluten practices in your restaurant: my older son (4 years old) spent yesterday and last night on the couch with a heating pad on his stomach, alternating with long trips to the bathroom. My younger son (16 mo) was lucky enough to escape serious medical intervention this time but still required consultation with his pediatrician and didn't stop vomiting or the diarrhea attendant with a glutening for almost 24 hours. The last and only time he was glutened, Timothy required an emergency medevac to a VA pediatric hospital because he had experienced a prolapse in his bowel. We are very relieved that didn't happen this time. We had to keep my older son from preschool this morning in fear that he would have an embarrassing and distressing accident. We have eaten out a total of eight times since my children were diagnosed in May 2009, and almost all at your restaurant chain, here and in Anchorage. We had no reason not to trust that Boston's wouldn't let us down this time. I don't tell you all this to invoke pity or to threaten litigation; I say all this to let you know the full impact of what happened to us and the importance of gluten free dining protocols if you are going to advertise such a menu option. I hope that your corporation doesn't decide to limit or eliminate its menu as a result of our issues. 1 in 132 Americans, according to University of Maryland's recent study - making 2.2 million people potential gluten free customers - suffers from this sort of condition. But this isn't something to be cavalier about either. To a celiac, every bit of gluten is like arsenic -- the effect is remarkably similar on the gut and nervous system. The care taken to make sure none ends up in the food of a celiac must be the same. After all, I hardly think your kitchen staff would conclude blithely that a little bit of arsenic in the pan or sprinkled in the pizza toppings would be worth the risk to a customer.

I would appreciate some sort of response to my concerns. I contacted the restaurant upon their opening yesterday and was not entirely pleased with their response. The manager did say that the owner had been in after a "call from corporate" to discuss gluten free procedures, but no assurance of what improvements have been made/will be made was offered, nor was there any apology or amends offered for the distress and illness Connor and Timothy have suffered. I think a "call from corporate" would have gone a long way toward making me feel that Boston's heard and understood my well-founded distress.

Perhaps I am expecting too much, but I feel the distinct need to let our dissatisfaction and physical pain be registered as strongly as possible. If nothing else, please do remove these options from your menu so other parents aren't misled into trusting their children's health will be safe. Thank you for your time.

Well, I must have lit a fire at Boston's corporate office because the response WAS gratifying, and honestly should be modeled by more service-oriented corporations when a customer's complaint is registered. I was vastly impressed. I received a call from a Ms Wade in Dallas who reassured me that they were making inquiries and reviews of all their gf procedures at all their restaurants and had directly addressed the issue with the FAirbanks restaurant in particular. She offered their apologies and asked that we gave them another chance -- with a hollow laugh, I assured her we would most likely not be doing so any time soon. At least for as long as the carpet smelled this bad.

Later that afternoon I got a call from Mr Cervantes at the Fairbanks restaurant and he was hugely receptive and apologetic. During the course of a half hour conversation he reviewed their procedures, accepted two suggestions from me (dedicated cleaning supplies and server accountability) and listened patiently to my CD101 lecture. He offered to host our family for free whenever we'd like to come eat, but again...that's kind of like being offered a game of free Russian roulette (thanks Jen, that made me laugh).

I didn't address things so strongly in an attempt to bludgeon anyone with guilt, sue anyone, get "free stuff" or share the misery for the sake of doing so...though I admit, I would have happily passed the blood spewing baby off to a Boston's exec with very little compunction roundabout 4 am...I did it to be an ADVOCATE. Little known and recognized diseases like celiac disease will never gain mainstream acceptance or accommodation without calm and measured advocacy. Of course in any service oriented issue, without giving customer feedback the service in question will never improve. And when it's health related, it's no good to passively accept the situation or just shrug and say, "Well, we'll never eat there again." What good would that have done anyone besides ourselves?

Oh crap...I hear vomiting upstairs. Sigh. Oh, the gluten...