The juggle of school, sports, and a social life occupy every high school student, and Matt Reddy seems to be one of them. All jokes aside, you could say the grind really doesn’t stop. About 13 years ago his mom brought him to a routine checkup at the hospital. Getting a couple allergy tests was no big deal, maybe just a bit annoying to have a dozen pricks made on his back. No one expected the results he got. “Immediately I started getting these huge welts up and down my back where they were testing me, so I knew something was wrong,” he recalls. Dairy, nuts, sesame seeds, and fruits all gave Matt painful, severe allergic reactions. This doctor’s visit flipped Matt’s life upside-down without a waning. Even hanging out with friends can turn into a traumatic event. A party over the summer at Peter’s house started like any other end-of-summer …show more content…
Within five minutes he was violently ill on the floor in the bathroom. “In the moment you’re having a good time, and the next your throat could be closing up,” Matt recalled. “It’d be easy for me to start panicking every time he had a meal, but I know that won’t help either of us!” Matt’s mom explains. Such a wide-ranging and severe allergy can easily sound like an obstacle to everyday life. But he takes in stride. “I guess it affects me daily, but at this point it’s something I have to consciously think about. You just kind of deal with it,” Matt says. Talking to Matt, it’d be impossible to tell he lives with such a burden unless you dug past the surface. He stays active, loves English class, and his friends will be quick to tell you, matter-of-factly, he’s “the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.” Baseball has been his favorite sport, favorite hobby, favorite thing in the world for as long as he can remember. His dad practices baseball with him and his brother in their backyard as soon has the temperature hits above 60