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By Art Gib
 You wake up; it's four in the morning and it feels like your stomach is going to explode. Slowly, so not to further aggravate the horrible terror that has now taken residence in your abdominal cavity, and tell your roommate to take you to the emergency room, pronto. Five minutes and two red lights later you crawl to the triage counter and beg for a doctor.
Cooly the admissions nurse looks down from her Ivory Office Chair and utters the dreaded words, "you have to fill out your paperwork first." You take the clipboard with the broken ball-point pen and sit in a plastic chair designed so only humpty dumpty could be comfortable sitting.
Name, age, address, next of kin, what you had for dinner, symptoms, and... turn to the next page. The title reads "please check any applicable family illness," but it looks more like a checklist for a mad scientist. "Family illnesses," you hazily think through the torturing pain, "what's that got to do with the lava demon refurbishing my entrails?"
Come to find out, quite a bit.
Scientists,
the men in the white coats with clipboards, and doctors, the men in white coats with stethoscopes, are discovering that many illnesses are hereditary, or run in the family. The predominate link between you and the Givers of Late Birthday Cards, are shared genetics. The same genetics that give you Uncle Harold's prominent brow and your father's voice also can give you heart disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, and even "that thing on Aunt Rose's neck."
As researchers, the guys in white coats that never get invited to parties, delve deeper into the genetic puzzle they are finding what portions cause what diseases. Since these portions are apt to being given to the next of kin, working knowledge of family health history can cut the number of tests, waiting, and checking out of boxes while waiting in the emergency room in half.
Knowledge of family health history is also key in researching the lineage of diseases too. If a patient comes in with certain symptoms, the men in the white coats can look at the patient's family medical history and see if similar symptoms have been recorded.
Many diseases and conditions, like ragged-red fiber and manic depression, are now thought to have genetically links. The men in the white coats often run blood and genetic tests on family members to narrow the links and get a better understanding of how diseases develop.
Writing down and keeping track of family members, their relation, and what diseases they had can be really confusing and will get out of hand in a hurry. Thankfully, software exists to help you with your trouble. Often they very user friendly and take you back generation by generation saving and sorting everything for you.
Since lugging around your desktop is impractical, most software provides simple, easy to read print outs, and now "family profiles" are emerging online so doctors and researchers can review the information at their leasure.
Well, after waiting an uncomfortably long time you finally learn that you have a stomach condition called Crohn's disease, which, you guessed it, might be genetic. A short discussion on what medicine to take, what foods to and not to eat, some odd questions about your recently single cousin Cecilia, and a lollypop and you're back before the Ivory Office Chair and the admissions nurse.
More paperwork, which seems breezy now that the Horrible Terror has met the demon slayer Hector von Analgesic, and your roommate emerges complaining that, after an exhausting search of all fifty-seven floors of the hospital, none of the vending machines have Barry Bars. So remember, next time you wake up with searing pain remember to a copy of your family health history, and don't say your family never gave you anything!
SGgenomics Inc (http://www.itrunsinmyfamily.com) offers information on family health history. Art Gib is a freelance writer.
Ideas To Incorporate Wellness Into Your Everyday Life
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