My friend Jed likes to share customer service stories. I just had a bad news, good news, bad news one.

Bad news: I called Children’s Hospital to find out how long I would have to feed David gluten before the antibodies for celiac disease would show up in a blood test. ‘Cause you know, I don’t want to wait a month if the boy is going to get violently ill. I got shunted through five people—the operator, the consulting nurse, the low level lab tech, the high level lab tech, and the pathology doctor--with the attendant electronic voice for each telling me the menu selections had changed.

Good news: Everyone understood what I was asking and why. I often find that’s the hardest part, speaking about my stressful problem clearly and dealing with people who have enough background knowledge to get it. More good news is they sent me up the chain of expertise fast.

Bad news: No one had a clue, including the doc. I think this speaks to the lack of knowledge, experience, and research on celiac. Since 1 in 133 people in the U.S. have it and only 3% know, I think every kid should get tested for it, and there should be a testing protocol in place. They don’t know how long someone has to eat gluten before the antibodies kick in because most kids are eating gluten for years and years (and feeling miserable for years and years) before some doctor finally decides to test for celiac.

We started David on gluten last night. We tried this five months ago when he was one. Not fun. We quit after eight days and did not have a blood test. So, here we go again. I don’t care if he has celiac or not; I just want this done.