[ IE ] OffsetWidth Returns 0

I developed a Grid that sometimes resides within a table. The Grid is created with the DOM and inserted in its parent element. Problem is that IE returns offsetWidth/offsetHeight 0 when you check its offsetWidth.

For example, the following code will return 0, while Firefox returns its correct width.

Code:
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td id="myCell">
Some text goes here...
<script type="text/javascript">
alert(document.getElementById("myCell").offsetWidth);
</script>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

I read somewhere that IE renders the table once it has read the entire table, so my guess is that offsetWidth returns 0 because the table is not yet rendered and its not part of the DOM?

Anyway, if anybody would know how to avoid this it would be great. This problem does not appear inside a DIV, but in this very case it must be inside a table...