If I had not been in the medical field, I am convinced I would have never been diagnosed with celiac disease. After seeing numerous consultants, many diagnoses were entertained except for this one. Being sick and caring for the sick taught me many valuable lessons. However, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. In my third year of residency training, after years of eating muffins for breakfast, free pizza for lunch, and sandwiches on call at night, I finally developed the classic textbook symptoms of malabsorption. That helped me narrow down the diagnosis to 7 major illnesses. Honestly, celiac disease was on the bottom of my list. The ubiquity and severity of symptoms had never really been described in texts the way they were experienced in the flesh. Yet there it was, a mildly elevated anti-gliadin antibody. That was the beginning of a second lease on life for me. Since then, I have become an avid advocate for celiac disease screening and have diagnosed several patients with "mystery illness syndrome."