It’s a mother’s worst fear. Your child is sick and you can’t do anything to help her.

Lisa Cray watched as her daughter, Emily, struggled with a constant illness that doctors could not identify. Her symptoms included vomiting, diarrhea, stomach and muscle pain and rashes across her body, so severe that Emily spent her first birthday in the hospital.

Doctors wrote off Emily’s condition as a virus, but the perpetual affliction continued until her mother insisted there was more to it.

Several biopsies later, Emily was finally diagnosed with Celiac Disease when she was five.

Celiac is a lifelong autoimmune inherited condition that causes damage to the small intestine when exposed to the protein gluten, found in wheat and related grains.

There is no cure or medication for the ailment, and the only treatment is a strict adherence to a gluten-free diet, a task not so easily achieved in the rural setting of Cray’s Lincoln County home.

“In this small town there are not a lot of retailers carrying the gluten-free stuff,” Cray said.

Cray explained that a small section of an aisle at the Walmart in Brookhaven is the only outlet in this area offering the products. That’s in thanks partly to the recent popularity of the gluten-free diet as a sort of “fad diet health craze.”

But for Emily, and other sufferers of the disease, the diet is a medical necessity.

Cray routinely drives to Rainbow Natural Grocery in Jackson, where she stocks up freezers full of gluten-free products.

“This is an expensive disease for your child to have,” she said.

In addition to the financial tolls, the strict diet can be frustrating, to say the least, for a child.

Emily, now 10, watches as her friends enjoy the often-overlooked delicacies of childhood such as pizza, birthday cake, ice cream and the simple cookie.

“I want to be like my friends,” Emily said. “I don’t want to be different.”

But Emily soon found that she was not the only one suffering with the disease.

Fellow West Lincoln Attendance Center student, Erin Rushing, age 14, was diagnosed with Celiac in the sixth grade after years of a similar fight with the unidentifiable symptoms.

“That’s a long time to go and a lot of money spent,” Erin’s mother, Janis Rushing, said.

Since discovering their daughters’ mutual condition, Cray and Rushing have utilized each other’s knowledge, experience and discoveries to create an informal support group.

They are reaching out with hopes of expanding their group to include others who are experiencing the hardships they once and still face.

“We know that there are other people out there who, if not just now facing it, it’s yet to come for them,” Rushing said.

Cray and Rushing encourage anyone interested to contact them at: Lisa Cray, 601-823-3532 and Janis Rushing, 601-835-2599; and visit celiac.org for more facts tips and resources on the disease.