Coeliac-Safe Restaurant

My younger sister was diagnosed with coeliac disease when she was four years old. We were lucky that she received a diagnosis so early, though the way it came about was traumatic to say the least.

I remember the day clearly: I was helping Mum wake her up to go to childcare. She opened her eyes, but her body was limp. Mum tried to get her up to stand on the bed and she wouldn’t hold her body up, despite her eyes being open. My mother screamed, I ran into the room and tried to get her alert too. I was around 16 years old. It was the strangest thing to watch when someone is there but can’t move a limb at all; she was just dead weight. We rushed to the hospital and, of course, being the family interpreter I was trying to explain our experience while they asked weird questions that I translated to my mum.