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I would like to add my opinion to the fray as well, since I realize that I
am greatly in a minority.  (And, please no hate mail over this -- it is just
one person's opinion.)  Julie's note gave me a bit of courage to write some
of my own thoughts.

I am, I suppose, fortunate to be a longtime watcher of the show, so was not
particularly affected by its shock quotient -- something that is typical of
the show.  It is a drama about a diagnostic team made up of brilliant but
often flawed characters.  The cases they get are those that no one else can
solve, and the show is gutsy enough to even allow for misdiagnoses on
occasion, sometimes with fatal consequences.  It was a deeply sad and
troubling story -- and sometimes the stories on this show are just that.  I
guess that celiac disease just didn't get the luck of the draw to be the
focus of one of the more heartwarming episodes.

But, to ME, I was just glad to see someone on TV *say* the words CELIAC
DISEASE!  And to show the flattened out villi, etc., even though that
wonderful visual got rather short shrift.  There were a number of aspects
that I thought were, in fact, realistic -- or at least important parts of
CD:

1.  The unbelievable number of tests and theories they charged through to
find a diagnosis, before it finally occurred to someone that it was CD.  WHY
OH WHY isn't CD part of a first-line blood testing panel when someone is ill
with multiple symptoms?!  But it sure isn't, and that part was very
realistic to me.

2.  They portrayed a very serious illness associated with CD.  I thought
this was extremely important, because, as Julie said, few people think this
is much more than a simple food allergy.  It doesn't bother me that they
showed something that was likely very rare as well.  (Although I suspect
sure the cancer part is, sadly, not all that rare.)  I have a close family
member who died of something VERY rare associated with CD, surrounded by
doctors proclaiming that CD could not possibly be involved.  I also
appreciated that they showed some type of neurological involvement, as,
again, I think this is something that many people do not realize can be
associated with CD.

3.  They didn't just stick to the "classic" symptoms (we all know 'em, and a
lot of people reading this list never had any of 'em, including me).

4.  The involvement of a trigger ... something that does seem to be at play
with CD and pretty much all autoimmune diseases.  Everything was falling
down around this woman's shoulders.  I am personally deeply grateful to have
found out about CD before my own "trigger" event happened.

5.  The doctor did not recognize the flattened villi, when this finding
should have "shouted" out to him.  Even when told it was CD by Dr. House,
the examining doctor (uninformed as most are about CD) didn't immediately
understand why the medications didn't get absorbed.

~~~~~

So, for my money, I wasn't disappointed for the most part or angry.  HOUSE
is always high on shock value.  In some ways, it's reminiscent of the TV
movie that started up earlier this week about Bird Flu.  Everyone knows that
their portrayal of the bird flu is completely beyond anything likely to
happen.  YET, it does harbor some value, in getting people to think about
various possibilities, and urge them to be prepared.

Yes, I would have liked to have seen more information about CD, such as its
under-diagnosis, some allusion to the wide array of symptoms it can have,
some mention of how many people have it, etc.  There was a regular character
on the show who seemed to have some kind of mysterious problem, and my
personal hope was that she would be the one with CD, so it could be some
kind of ongoing focus.  But that didn't happen.  However, my disappointment
is minor and I think that what the show did was more good than bad.

When the show comes up for re-runs in the summer, I think it would be
fantastic if local celiac groups around the country could get their local
FOX station to run a news piece about CD, following it's re-airing.

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