Thanks for visiting my fundraising page!

I found this cause a little over a year ago when I was figuring out what I could do for my bat mitzvah project. I chose to raise money and walk for this cause because I can relate to it in so many ways. FAAN stands for Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, and considering I have so many food allergies, it seemed like the right thing to look into. My allergies started with apples, almost four years ago. As the years have gone on, and as I’ve found more and more food allergies of mine, we have discovered that I have developed what’s called Oral Allergy Syndrome in result to my spring allergy of birch pollen/trees. That means that all of the fruits and vegetables that I am allergic to are connected to the birch, except when I eat these foods I have a reaction in inwardly, in the inside of my mouth and throat, compared to when I have reactions to the pollen in the spring which is more of an outward, eyes and nose thing. Right now, I am unable to eat all tree fruits, except for citrus fruits and bananas, and I can also have grapes, honeydew, and cantelope melons. I can’t have carrots, celery, or potatoes, hazelnuts nor peanuts. As you can probably assume, this is a real bummer. Especially since now we are finding out that just being next to a friend eating an apple, or touching something that could have a trace of an apple or another fruit on it could be a problem as well. As much of a frustration as this is, I chose to support this organization because I have been learning about how much worse it could be. And as many times as I want to think of it as a “Why me?” situation, I also have to think of the other people out in this world who’s list is larger than mine, and have other ways they must adjust to eating besides just leaving out two food groups like I do.

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