Talk

I’ve got a guest blogger today: Alla Rogers, IT Manager at DNA Direct. Alla is a cracker-jack technologist and after-hours science geek (and often shy), so I’m excited that she volunteered this post.

Alla says…

Last night, exhausted after work, I was watching a pre-recorded episode of House half-asleep. Being an IT person (and an ESL one at that), I’m usually not familiar with half of the terms they use on that show, so imagine my excitement when I first heard the word “hemochromatosis” mentioned as one of the possible medical conditions this episode’s patient could be suffering from. “Ah! We test for that!” I exclaimed to my husband. Any trace of sleep was gone - is it finally something other than a “tumor” or “poisoning” on House?!

As other factors, signs, and symptoms came into play like “the patient used to be a vegetarian, but started eating meat recently” (oh look, a source of iron), muscle aches, and the unavoidable dramatic turn of events in face of “the patient’s liver is shutting down,” I became convinced that this episode’s condition will end up being hemochromatosis. The last symptom that saved the day and led to another “ah-ha” moment for Dr. House was the patient’s inability to bend his thumb because of joint pain. This is all exciting when it’s just a show on TV, but I started thinking how sick this patient (a young boy) had to get before hemochromotosis was recognized and treated. It made me realize what a big difference every bit of knowledge about one’s health could make. The show did not talk about the genetic risks for hemochromatosis, however being in the genetic testing field, I was taking it all in from the genetics point of view.

As I re-appreciated the benefit of what we provide, I realized that most people, like myself, have never really experienced this utter disappointment in context of health — “had I known, it would not have come to this” — the 20/20 hind vision. On the other hand, I can imagine that people that deal with these sort of conditions also have to deal with these regrets. The rest of us sometimes need a nudge to remind us. Something has to “click” for us to realize that we could be at risk for something, and we have the power to know this! For me this was just a TV show. What makes you think about what you can do for your health today?

(The Microarray Blog has a great post about Hollywood & Genetics, including a link to the Science on TV blog, which is a fun read.)

Technorati Tags: house, television, tv, hollywood, genetics, science, hemochromatosis, signs and symptoms

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 11:40 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.